THE 



Church and the Faith 



A PHILOSOPHICAL HISTORY OF THE 
CATHOLIC CHURCH 



CONTAINING A THEORY OF THE CHURCH, AN ACCOUNT OF 

ITS ESTABLISHMENT, ESSAYS ON THE SIX GENERAL COUNCILS AND 

IMPORTANT CONTROVERSIES, AN EXPOSITION AND DEFENSE OF 

THE DUE AND PROPER CLAIMS OF THE CHURCH 

IN AMERICA, AND OTHER MATTERS 



iV^" 



BY THE REV. 

WILLIAM BREVOORT 




NEW YORK 

E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO 

COOPER UNION, FOURTH AVENUE 
1887 






<$ 



& 

^ 







Copyright, 1887. 
E. & J. B. Young & Co. 



DEDICATION. 



to the right reverend 
Hugh Miller Thompson, s.t.d., ll.d., 

TTTHOSE ABLE INSTRUCTION TAUGHT HIM TO SEEK FOR THE HIDDEN MEANING WHICH 
UNDERLIES THE EVENTS OF HISTORY, TO EXAMINE THE EVIDENCE OF HISTORIANS 
WITH A CRITICAL EYE, AND TO ACCEPT A RATIONAL THEORY OF DOCTRINAL DE- 
VELOPMENT ; 

WHOSE WISE FORESIGHT AND TEMPERATE COURAGE HAVE POINTED OUT FOR HIM AND 
OTHERS THE SAFE PATH THROUGH AT LEAST ONE VEHEMENT CONTROVERSY OF 
MODERN DATE; 

AND WHOSE MANLY ELOQUENCE HAS HELD BEFORE HIM AND VAST CONGREGATIONS A 
SHINING EXAMPLE AND MODEL OF THE TRUE PULPIT ORATOR ; 

THE FOLLOWING VOLUME IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR, IN THE HOPE 
THAT NO CAUSE OF OFFENSE WILL MEET THE KEEN EYE OF HIS FORMER PRECEP- 
TOR, SHOULD CURIOSITY PROMPT SO BUSY A DIVINE TO TURN THESE PAGES, AND 
EXAMINE THE QUALITY OF THE FRUIT FOR WHICH THE SKILL AND PATIENT FAITH- 
FULNESS OF THE LEARNED DOCTOR ARE IN A MEASURE RESPONSIBLE. 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE. 

It is believed that a very definite aim, as the purpose of the 
present publication, will manifest itself to every attentive reader 
who has the patience to peruse it to the end. It may not be 
superfluous, however, to state that the author was conscious of 
a twofold design, while laboring at his manuscript. Having 
often wished, in vain, for some single book which should present 
in a small compass, for the benefit of such as he has been pre- 
paring for confirmation, the exact nature of some of the main 
reasons which, in his judgment, should actuate every one who 
seeks to become a member of the church at whose altars he 
unworthily ministers, he intends to employ the present volume 
for the instruction of his own candidates ; and offers it to the 
public in the hope that it may prove useful to others in a similar 
way. He also begs leave to say that he is thoroughly persuaded 
that the work contains an argument which is as important as it 
is uncommon; that, for himself, he holds to the correctness of 
the position assumed, and expects to die in that belief, as he 
has always lived in it since he became old enough to form 
an intelligent judgment in the premises; and that he has made 
an attempt to set forth his views, knowing them to be unpop- 
ular, because he has felt constrained to take that step by that 
strange necessity of strenuously advocating his peculiar ideas 
which lies so heavily upon most men of decided convictions, 
in whose ranks the author would shrink from claiming for him- 
self a place, did not the exigencies of his period seem to exact 
such a sacrifice from his diffidence. 



yi PREFACE. 

Ten y^ars have sped on their way since this work was com- 
posed. Re vising it carefully after such an interval, and after 
several years in which it was not even glanced at, the writer 
has, of course, found somewhat to be changed, but he is sur- 
prised at the small amount of really important alterations he 
has been led to make. The positions assumed he regards as 
defensible ; and, relying upon the divine assistance, he is ready 
to maintain them against all assailants. Should he presently 
become convinced that any one of them is untenable, ,he will 

r 

cheerfully seek, and diligently fortify, other ground, thankful 
for whatever agency shall have delivered him from so much 
of error. As, however, a whole decade has strengthened his 
persuasion that the teachings of this humble production are 
substantially those of nineteen Christian centuries, he is embold- 
ened to commit these chapters to discriminating, well-informed, 
and enlightened readers with a certain degree of hopeful confi- 
dence that his extremely pleasant, though arduous, labor will 
not have been wasted. 

THE AUTHOR. 
December 1st 1886. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 

PAGE 

Forms of government not unimportant, in particular forms of church gov- 
ernment — Possibility of being more or less happy in heaven according 
to one's life on earth — All sects tend towards deterioration — The church 
the only hope of the world at large — Christ's Church dear to all who 
love Him 11 



CHAPTER II. 

THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 

Two theories, Monarchical and Republican — A model government not yet 
realized — Objections to a democracy — No form of government imposed 
upon us by Reason — God absolute Monarch of the universe — Danger of 
Centralization — Of License — The Church the champion of Freedom — 
To whom was the commission to rule Christ's Kingdom given ? — The 
Apostles communicated the Holy Ghost to the baptized — Commission 
to the Apostles alone — Our method of reasoning vindicated — The func- 
tions of the laity in the Christian Republic — This Republic a Monarchy 
also, governed by Christ through commissioned officers — The Apostolic 
Succession valueless out of the true Communion 19 



CHAPTER III. 

EPISCOPACY. 

The Episcopal Theory satisfies the requirements of Scripture — The Papal 
Supremacy a fiction — The Church episcopal in second century — Univer- 
sally — No trace of any previous change — Must have been so in the 
beginning — Likelihood of ambitious presbyters snatching the mitre — 



viii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Theory of a gradual, unrecorded usurpation subversive of the entire 
Faith — Reason of adoption of usurpation theory — Anti-episcopacy un- 
tenable 31 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONTINUITY AND KISE OF THE CHUKCH. 

The Christian Church a continuation of the Jewish — The Holy Spirit not 
given till Pentecost — Jewish ceremonies tolerated for awhile, but swept 
away at last by the destruction of Jerusalem — Rapidity of growth con- 
sidered as a criterion of the doctrine taught by a sect — Natural causes 
insufficient to account for rapid advance of Christianity — Hatred of 
Jews for a suffering Messiah — Of Gentiles for a Crucified God — Of sin- 
ful man for goodness and truth — Christianity triumphant through 
cooperation of the Holy Spirit — The natural causes which, working 
with the divine agency, produced such speedy and solid progress in the 
early days of the Church were, 1st. Its admirable organization — 2nd. Its 
unity ; 3rd. Its purity ^ 41 



CHAPTER V. 

MANICH^ISM. 

Early sects — Gnosticism — Manichaeism — Origin of evil — Consequences of 
Dualistic theory; Monachism — Puritanism — Brethren of Free Spirit — 
Calvinism— Universalism— Rejection of Old Testament 55 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 

Conversion of the world — Of Constantine — Edict of Milan — Glorious pros- 
pect before the Church — An Establishment unjust — Dangers of such a 
status to the Church — Imperial intermeddling in matters of faith — 
Aggrandizement of ministry — Evils arising with growth of Episcopal 
importance — 1st. Deterioration of character — 2nd. Elevation of un- 
worthy men — Investiture Controversy — Bad results of Establishment . . 63 



CHAPTER VII. 

THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 

The Saviour as a Teacher— Taught a system of the most perfect kind — 
Disciples needed one of another sort — A system necessary in all learning 
and teaching — St. Paul as a systematizer — Objections must be met by 



CONTENTS. i x 

PAGE 

definite replies— Religion obedient to this law— One must philosophize 
in order to reflect — Impossible to instruct the ignorant without for- 
mulae — Opposition to Dogmatic Theology comes from repugnance to 
Christianity, from love of peace, from mental incapacity, from inherited 
prejudice — From arrogant way in which it has been taught — Analogy 
demands that we should not be left to the task of weighing authorities 
in order to ascertain the Truth — A safer way provided — Voice" of the 
Spirit to be sought for in the utterances of the whole church — Initiative 
in determining controversies belongs to the ministry — Laity must have 
at least the power of veto — Ministry a caste — Most exposed to govern- 
mental influence — Not as conservative as the laity — No council can a 
priori be pronounced General — Absolute unanimity not requisite — 
Council not to pronounce what the Faith ought to be, but what it 
always has been — Must, however, be allowed a certain liberty in draw- 
ing plain deductions and deciding upon propriety of forms — Tradi- 
tion — Development 74 



CHAPTER VIII. 

COUNCIL OF NICJEA, 325 A. D. 

Alexandria — Its school — Its speculative tendency — Dispute between Alex- 
ander and Arius — Arianism — Its terrible and sweeping consequences — 
Constantine interposes — Members of the Council of Nicaea — Hosius — 
Busebius — Eustathius — Athanasius — His life — His importance to the 
Church — A remarkable synod — Transactions at its sessions — Discussion 
of the Homoousion — The controversy not an unimportant one — The rea- 
sonableness of the Catholic doctrine — The Monarchy of the Father — 
Decisions of the Council — Subsequent history of the struggle — Con- 
stantine and Arius — Constantius — His successors and their policies — 
Rise of Aetians and Semi-Arians — Arianism vanishes 95 



CHAPTER IX. 

FIKST COUNCIL OF COSTSTAKTIN-OPLE, 381 A. D. 

Anecdote of Amphilochius — Macedonius and Macedonianism — Apollinari- 
anism and its founder — How far Apollinarius was responsible for the 
heresy which took his name — Necessity for a General Council — Times 
inauspicious — Sad effects of alliance between Church and State in de- 
terioration of the former — Damaging influence upon morals of un- 
intermitted controversy and strife — Council called — Constantinople — 
Theodosius the Great — His religious policy — Success of his arms — 
Constitution and conduct of Councils — Excuse for unruliness of an- 
cient gatherings to be sought in the lack of Parliamentary Manuals — 
Gregory Nazianzen — Action of the Council— (Ecumenicity of Council 
— Division of the Church into Greek and Latin Churches — Difference 
between Greek and Roman tongues — Thev are established with corre- 



CONTENTS. 

PAGS 

sponcling diversity of civilization in East and West respectively — 
Greeks degenerate in Asia — Greek the great language of theology— The 
Romans morally superior — Staunch and conservative — (Ecumenicity of 
1st Constantinople proved by universal reception of its Creed 125 



CHAPTER X. 

COUNCIL OF EPHESUS, 431 A. D. 

Antioch and its school — Antagonism between Alexandria and Asia — Cyril 
— View of the Incarnation taken by Theodore of Mopsuestia — Nestorius 
patriarch of Constantinople — Accused by Eusebius of Dorylseum — Use 
of term TJieotokos — Its correctness — Reference to Rome of the dispute 
by both parties, Cyril and Nestorius — Growing importance of Rome — 
Celestine favorable to Cyril — Theodosius the Younger — Ephesus — As- 
sembling of the bishops — Proceedings — Counter-proceedings of John 
and his adherents — Imperial countenance obtained by Cyril's party — 
Character of the Council — Question of authoritativeness not bound up 
with that of orderliness — End of the session — Reconciliation of prin- 
cipal disputants — Further history of Nestorianism — Church right in 
strenuously asserting the TheotoJcos — Decline of the heresy — Pelagian- 
ism— Pelagius — St. Augustine — His history, conversion, writings — Rad- 
ical defect in philosophy of both Pelagius and Augustine — Man a free 
agent — His power a limited one — Reconciliation of contradiction — Rise 
of Pelagianism — History of the new doctrine — Zosimus of Rome at first 
approves and then condemns it — Ephesus pronounces its condemnation 
— Semipelagianism — Statement of view of man's freedom held by 
Pelagius — By Augustine — True theory that of cooperation — Discussion 
of Foreknowledge — Views concerning Adam — The Fall — Original Sin 
— Redemption — Regeneration — Decisions of Council of Ephesus — The 
Catholic doctrine of Election 147 



CHAPTER XL 

COUNCIL OF CHALCEDONY 451 A. D. 

The monastic orders — The papacy — Their rivalry, and that of Alexandria 
and Constantinople — Dioscorus — Eutyches accused — Robber Synod — 
Nature of Eutychianism — Difficulties attending attempts to conceive of 
the union without fusion of the two natures — Commingling of natures 
destructive of doctrine of Mediatorship — Death of Theodosius, acces- 
sion of Pulcheria, and her marriage with Marcian — Policy of govern- 
ment with regard to the holding of a council — Place and composition 
of Fourth General Council— Its proceedings— Case of Theodoret — 
Reluctance to issue definitions of the Faith— Condemnation of Eutych- 
ianism and affirmation that Christ exists "in two natures "—Cyril's 
orthodoxy discussed — Definition of Chalcedon justified — Ratification of 
three preceding General Councils— Advantages arising from this ratifi- 



CONTENTS. x i 

PAGE 

cation — Chalcedon completes the defense and statement of doctrine of 
Incarnation — Church proof against natural tendency towards extreme 
views — History of Alexandrian church — Disturbances in Palestine — 
Leo's Encyclical — Zeno's Henoticon — Schism of Rome and Constan- 
tinople — Later history of Eutychians, or Jacobites 191 

CHAPTER XII 

SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 553 A. D. 

Completeness of doctrinal system formulated by first four councils — Fifth 
and Sixth not unnecessary — Propriety of Justinian's scheme for settling 
faith by corresponding with the bishops instead of summoning them to 
a conclave — Theodore Ascidas excites a controversy about certain writ- 
ings in order to draw off attention from Origenism — The errors of 
Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas collected into Three Chapters, and con- 
demned by Imperial Edict, 544, as favoring Nestorianism — The con- 
demned authors — Justinian — Edict endorsed— Resistance of North- 
African Church — Of Vigilius, and Dalmatian and Illyrian bishops — 
Vigilius at Constantinople — Noted opponents — Africans mistaken as to 
action of Chalcedon with regard to writings of Theodoret and Ibas — 
Objection advanced by them to condemnation of dead men not valid — 
Fifth General Council — Ratification of its action — Plea for its author- 
itativeness 21G 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE, 680-681 A. D. 

Imperial contempt for theological controversy — Successive compromises — 
Their results — The Monothelite compromise — Its origin — Why Will was 
selected — Discussion of the new doctrine — Problem of contact — Herac- 
lius — Rise of Monothelism — Sophronius — " Ectheus " (639) — Constans 
II. — Maximus — "Type" (648) — Opposition — Stephen of Dor — Maximus 
— Martin I. — Persecution and death of last — Of Maximus — Anastasius — 
Martyrs had not suffered in vain — Adeodatus excommunicates Patriarch 
of Constantinople — Donus — Agatho summons synod which condemns 
the heresy — Constantine Poganatus calls the Sixth General Council — 
Its proceedings — Remarkable episode — Decision of Council — Honorius 
of Rome anathematized — Further history of struggle, and downfall of 
Monothelism — Maronites 233 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 

Certain controversies instrumental in dividing the Church — Judaism and 
idols — Early Christians denounce science — And art — Christianity not 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

hostile to Love of Beautiful — Art gains a foot-hold — Danger attending 
pictures and images — Idolatry enervating to soul of worshiper — Effemi- 
nacy the origin of idolatry in the Church — A reaction to be expected — 
Mahommedanism and Judaism deride the idols of Christians — Leo 
the Isaurian — Attacks images — Rouses the monks of the Archipelago — 
Opposition — Germanus resigns see of Constantinople — Italy rejects the 
edict — John Damascenus — Constantine V., Copronymus — Convenes 
Council at Constantinople, 754, and condemns images — Irritates the 
partisans of images — Severe and cruel treatment of patriarch of Con- 
stantinople — Leo IV. emperor — Irene — Council of Nicsea (787) restores 
images — Leo the Armenian a vehement Iconoclast (813-820) — Theodore 
Studites — Michael II. — Theophilus — Theodora ejects John the Gram- 
marian, reinstates images, and institutes the Feast of Orthodoxy — 
Charlemagne — The Four Caroline Books — The middle course — Charle- 
magne rebukes both parties — Council at Frankfort in 794 — Lewis the 
Pious — Britain unites with France — Fair prospect clouded 255 



CHAPTER XV. 

SCHISM OF EAST AND WEST. 

The scene at Babel reenacted — No doctrine binding, however generally held, 
unless sanctioned by a council — Providence makes assembling of a gen- 
eral council impossible — Unity not destroyed by the Schism — Great in- 
jury, nevertheless, results — Causes of disruption — Moral or theological 
— Natural — Union with State — Minor causes — Iconoclastic controversy 
— "Filioque" — Grounds of objection raised by the Greeks to insertion 
of that clause — Unauthorized — Impugns Monarchy of the Father — 
History of Schism — Nicholas I. — Photius — Mutual excommunication — 
Attempt at reunion in Eleventh Century — In Thirteenth — In Fifteenth 
— Total failure — End of Byzantine Empire 280 



CHAPTER XVI. 

EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 

'lie Frankish race takes a leading position in the Church — Iconoclastic Con- 
troversy trenches upon doctrine of Eucharist — First Eucharistic Con- 
troversy — Doctrine of Paschasius Radbert — Opponents — Supporters — 
Discussion of Doctrine — Testimony of senses to be taken unreservedly 
or not at all — They testify against corporeal change — Christ's manhood 
is in heaven — We partake not of glorified, but of crucified, body — Posi- 
tion thus reached must be maintained at all hazards — On the other hand, 
Christ is present in Eucharist specially by His divinity — By His Vicar, 
the Holy Spirit — In a closer and mystical sense which we cannot under- 
stand — Nothing gained by theory of carnal presence — Our theory not 
tending to debase the Sacrament — Scholasticism — Weakness of Beren- 



CONTENTS. x iii 

PAGE 

garius — He comes upon the stage — Advanced views which have become 
unpopular — He twice recants, and dies — Substance and Accidents — 
Transubstantiation and its consequences 298 

CHAPTER XVII. 

LATIN CHUKCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 

Pristine glory and sad decline of Rome — The wretched character of many- 
popes — General deterioration of the ministry — Moral tendency of cer- 
tain false doctrines — Rome estopped from denying these charges — Palli- 
ating circumstance to be found in universality of degeneracy — Probably 
painted as more thorough than it really was — Doctrinal condition of 
Latin Church — Its status as an organization — Council of Trent (1545- 
1563) — Causes of hatred between Romanists and Protestants — A plea 
for charity and justice 315 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

CONTINENTAL REFORMATION". 

Luther — Real question before us regarding Lutheranism — Doctrine of Pri- 
vate Judgment — The Lutheran Body not a Church — Lay-baptism — 
Position of English Reformers upon this question — Consideration of the 
plea that the Lutheran and Reformed communions have prospered so 
greatly — Calvinism — Closing reflection 331 

CHAPTER XIX. 

ENGLISH CHURCH. 

Settlement and early history of England — Its conversion — Augustine — 
Columba — Roman interest gradually predominates — The Danes — Nor- 
mans — Henry II. — Magna Charta — Robert of Lincoln — Wycliffe — The 
English Church submissive to the Papacy — Henry VIII. — Erastianism 
— English independence — Henry not the cause of the English reforma- 
tion — His tyranny injurious to it — Defense of Henry, as acting accord- 
ing to law — As having been right in annulling an incestuous marriage 
— The one great impediment to reform lay in the doctrine of Papal 
Supremacy — This obstruction brought to light — Caution and reverence 
in revising doctrine — Gradual emancipation from Transubstantiation — 
Other errors fall along with this — Influence of Continental Reformers — 
Reformation not perfect — The Church question as viewed by Cranmer 
and others — We are justified in regarding it differently — The English 
liturgies — Articles of religion necessary — The various series — Continuity 
of organization — English reformation not an accident — Difference be- 
tween destruction and renovation — Trials of the Church — Her preser- 
vation 340 



x iv CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEK XX. 

AMERICAN CHURCH. 

PAGE 

Colonization of America — Independence achieved — Material progress— Lack 
of Conservatism a national fault — Supplied by the Church — Puritan- 
ism — American Church a free one — Long deprived of bishops — These 
obtained at last — The daughter church does not cease to be a branch of 
the Catholic Communion — Woful condition of colonial church — Sad 
results — Saved by sound theology of the English divines — Her present 
condition — True policy — Her hope 373 



THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH, 



CHAPTEK I. 

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 



The temper of the age is to take little account of the claims 
advanced by conflicting sects, or even by rival religions. So 
extremely tolerant have we become that we care little to ask 
whether, indeed, a fellow-man has any religion at all. The old 
contentions which drowned nations in blood about differences of 
creed excite in the most of us no emotions whatever but those of 
wonder that reasonable beings should ever have engaged in them, 
and of pity, not unmingled with contempt, for the moral condition 
which made it possible to become excited upon such themes as 
gave rise to them. Most of all have we agreed that the belong- 
ing to this denomination, or that, or to any at all, is a matter of 
no importance whatsoever. In this respect the Christian world 
has greatly changed, not only since the Sixteenth Century, but 
since those early ages of the Faith to which some still look back 
with so much reverence, which indeed none who believe in the 
Bible can afford to despise. Time was when it was very generally 
held that there was absolutely no salvation outside of the one, 
holy, catholic and apostolic church ; and that was when the men 
had not yet been taken from earth who had been taught by the 
living voice of the Saviour ; and though we should conclude that 
this very general opinion of the early Christians was a mistake 
growing out of the engrafting of a false philosophy upon the pure 
teachings of Christ, yet we would be obliged to admit that the 
mistake was not only a very natural one to men strongly tinctured 
with the exclusiveness of Judaism and fired with the fervor of 
converts in the youth of a religion, but also a very pardonable one 



12 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

to students of the New Testament when criticism had not yet 
learned to be as dispassionate as it has now become, seeing that 
the very commission which sent out the heralds of the Gospel 
npon that glorious, but most arduous and perilous, service of 
preaching Jesus and the Resurrection to all nations, was accom- 
panied with the awful announcement that those who should reject 
their message would be condemned; and what could that mean but 
condemned at the final judgment? Nor will sound philosophy 
warrant the application of a different rule to religion from that to 
which everything else is found to conform. Herbert Spencer has 
doubtless done a good service to the world in emphasizing the 
truth that governments, by attempting to do too much, seriously 
interfere with the beneficial workings of natural laws ; and by that 
very argument strengthens the position maintained by the vast 
majority of intelligent and thoughtful men that the happiness and 
misery, the prosperity and declension, of nations depend largely 
upon the character of the institutions under which they live. It 
is rather late to claim that humanity owes nothing to the mighty 
efforts of the old Roman legislators. Most of us would be rather 
impatient of the thesis that the rule of the Turk is as advantageous 
as that of the Queen of Great Britain, or even that there is any 
other form of government whatever the substitution of which for 
our own ought to be contemplated with indifference. Yast sums 
of money are being expended, huge outlays of time made, incal- 
culable effort directed, and immense interest lavished each year, 
in every civilized nation, upon legislation ; and when it comes to 
amending constitutions, that is hedged about with such safeguards 
that it certainly looks as though mankind at large were persuaded 
of the importance of these things, as though they were decidedly 
of opinion that good laws are better than bad ones, and a sound 
constitution preferable to a defective one. It is not easy to see 
how institutions, systems, organizations, political and social in 
character, can be of so much moment, and those religious in char- 
acter of none at all ; unless, indeed, religion itself is, as so many 
seem to be convinced, of no consequence. The organization of 
the stellar universe is of importance ; the organization of the 
human being is of importance ; the organization of the political 
fabric is of importance ; and therefore we may not rashly conclude 
that the organization of men as religious beings is not of extremely 
grave importance also. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 13 

We Lave, it is true, come to see that men cannot be con- 
demned for what is not their fault, that heathen who have had no 
opportunity of learning about the Christ cannot be cast away by a 
just Deity because they do not believe in Him. It is perfectly 
evident to us of this generation that every man who strives to do 
the best he can under the circumstances of his life must be com- 
mended and accepted, for having obeyed the law which he found 
written within him, or at least having tried hard and perse ver- 
ingly to obey it, by the God who so loved us that He sent His 
only-begotten Son to take away the sins of the world. It is also 
axiomatic, or nearly so, that we are bound to recognize the Fruits 
of the Spirit wherever we find them, without distinction of creed 
or sect, and to regard those as true followers of the Lamb whom 
we see to be such. Do then these two self-evident propositions, 
that a man must be commended for doing as well as he can, and 
that the presence of the Holy Spirit must be acknowledged where 
the proper tokens are seen, lead to the conclusion that the Church 
question is devoid of significance ? 

That a man should be admitted into heaven is not all, for even 
if all are admitted into the same heaven and then are surrounded 
in all respects by the same environment, that no more insures an 
equality of enjoyment than a similar identity of treatment would 
on earth. Place a savage in a palace, plunge a sybarite in a 
boundless forest overrun with game, and neither is likely to thank 
you for his fate. So long as individuals are individuals they are 
what they are, and what they are is largely the product of their 
life history. Every servant may receive the same coin of wages in 
that he is admitted into bliss, and yet one rule over ten cities and 
another over five. A saint does not leave his character behind 
when he ascends the skies, but carries with him a certain definite 
capacity of enjoyment. He must be dull-spirited who does not 
see how great the differences are in point of ability to engage in 
worship. One person dies who has acquired the habit of close 
communion with God, and to whom ecstatic states of devotion 
are by no means unfamiliar ; and another departs this life who has 
done little more than barely tolerate exercises of public, family, 
and private devotion, perhaps punctiliously complying with the 
forms but throwing no heart into the worship : is it conceivable 
that the latter should be as happy as the former in the presence 
of the God whom they have approached so differently ? Or com- 



U THE CHUBCH AND THE FAITH. 

pare two persons, one of whom has been taught in his youth to 
entertain the loftiest conceptions of the Triune God and to adore 
Him in all the beauty of holiness with all the helps afforded by 
the grandest services, and the other has groped blindly after the 
ideal of his soul and struggled all his life against the depressing 
influences of early prejudices and degrading superstitions, know- 
ing that God is, and striving earnestly to find Him, crying aloud 
to some One and hardly distinguishing Him from a thousand idols 
that his forefathers have made for themselves : can we suppose 
that death places them upon an equality so that the one is as 
capable of entering into the sublime praises of God as the other ? 
Whether, then, it be allowable to conjecture the existence, in addi- 
tion to the " Jerusalem which is above," of heavenly Cesaragas, 
Antiochs, Komes, Alexandras, as homes for those who have not 
enjoyed the advantages of God's holy Church on earth, it plainly 
does not follow, from the impossibility of believing that a man 
will be eternally lost merely because he died in ignorance of 
Christianity, that it is not well worth our while to preach and 
teach Christianity to the heathen. 

Then, as regards the second proposition, could it be demon- 
strated, notwithstanding the extreme difficulty of gauging the 
relative spirituality of different persons, that there is truth in the 
common assertion that equally good persons are nurtured under 
all Christian creeds, this would only show that the Almighty's 
hand is not tied up by His own ordinances, but that, while He 
chooses to set metes and bounds to His customary workings, He 
sometimes sees fit to transcend these self-imposed limitations and 
to bestow His grace otherwise than He has by promise obligated 
Himself to do. A whole nation, or even the great majority of an 
entire generation, might, for all we know to the contrary, be in 
such an abnormal condition that the Lord might judge it expedi- 
ent to treat the members of it almost as if they actually belonged 
to His Church, whereas the real truth were that they did not so 
belong. There might be good reasons, nevertheless, for maintain- 
ing the distinctive features of the Church, whether these reasons 
should be evident to people in general, or not. The story of the 
many sects which at different periods, since the Son of Man with- 
drew His visible presence from earth, have sprung into being with 
more or less vehement claim to be the truest embodiment of dis- 
cipleship, teaches us not to be hasty in judging that a new denomi- 



IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 15 

nation is all that it wishes us to believe that it is. A tree is 
known bj its fruits, to be sure, but the excellence of those first 
gathered may be sought in vain upon the twigs of the second 
year. Science instructs us that varieties improved by cultivation 
tend to revert to the original and greatly inferior type : in nothing 
is this law more unvarying than in the progress of religious so- 
cieties. The new doctrine may brave with impunity the attacks 
of logic, and submit with equal assurance to the inspection which 
the naturally religious heart brings to bear upon everything which 
comes within its field of vision ; it may proudly point to vast 
companies of men and women who have been trained by its in- 
fluence into loftiness of soul and correctness of life ; it may even 
adduce many proofs that Providence is enlisted upon its side, 
gathered from apparent interpositions in its behalf; and yet this 
fair exterior may cover much which God discerns very plainly, 
though man suspect not its presence then, nor discover it till 
generations have afforded scope for its complete development. 
Alas ! universally do we trace this tendency to deteriorate ; in 
church and sect alike does the discerning eye perceive it. As in 
man, so in every religious organization good and evil wage inter- 
necine strife for the mastery, and temporarily at least evil often 
gains the upper hand ; then woe to the organization ! Sweeping 
a rapid glance over all the countries that have ever been called 
Christian, and then narrowing our view to the great, if small, 
continent of Europe, there singling out nation by nation for the 
purpose of scanning its religious history, and perhaps pausing at 
last, not without silent lament, upon the wreck of old Father 
Tiber's Pride, let us honestly say whether the deplorable drift is 
not everywhere discernible. How then shall good eventually 
triumph ? The reply is not unheard : Let everything go on, let 
religion clash with religion, sect vie with sect, church emulate 
church, each modifying and gradually ameliorating the other, and 
ail slowly welding themselves together into the great Church of 
the Future. A hopeful theory. As nation undergoes attrition with 
nation, each rounding off the other, one borrowing its neighbor's 
inventions and improvements, and repaying them in kind and 
with interest, and all Europe the while steadily marching forward 
in civilization, so shall it be with churches. . Is Christianity, then, 
an outgrowth of civilization, a development of religious instinct, 
and not a divine revelation ? If so, it may be left, as civilization 



16 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

is measgrabl y left, to take care of itself; but if it be indeed beyond 
man's inventive power, a something sent down from heaven to 
meet an urgent human need, what chance is there that it will 
survive the rude handling it is sure to receive, unless the same 
gracious Being who gave it to an unappreciative world shall mer- 
cifully continue to foster it? The Church is here, like her Lord, 
for no selfish purpose. She exists for a world-wide purpose, — to 
witness for God to all the earth, and her influence penetrates into 
the remotest and most hidden corners of both hemispheres where 
men name the name of Christ. Upon the Church of God's 
own building, wherever and whatever that Church be, must 
depend the hopes of a struggling, groaning, sorely-afflicted Chris- 
tendom. Standing amid the surging billows a rock-based beacon, 
her light flashing far across the deep at least serves to warn such 
vessels as with dragging anchors are drifting away from safe 
moorage. Extinguish that one steadfast gleam, and how long 
would it be till the whole fleet should have lost itself in the 
trackless expanse of doubt, ignorance, and sin ? 

If there be, as all, in some sense, who believe in the Bible, 
must confess there is, such a Church, it cannot without manifest 
irreverence be asserted or implied that this Church is very similar to, 
hardly distinguishable from, a railroad meeting no public demand, 
opening up no valuable tract of land, affording a market for no 
considerable amount of produce, but just laid out and completed 
by some wasteful capitalist to gratify an unaccountable impulse ; 
for, with all solemnity be it said, how can we justify the expendi- 
ture of labor and care by our Saviour in constructing a road to 
heaven, if when made it is found no more secure, no better in 
any way, than a thousand others which all conduct to the same 
destination % 

We may not severely blame any age for thinking that the 
millennium is near, but we are not obliged to adopt that theory 
ourselves. Great as may be our present attainments, they proba- 
bly are not as great as men are capable of reaching, nor even by 
any means as perfect as they should be, taking into consideration 
the length of our spiritual genealogies and the evident rule that 
each generation ought to be better than the preceding one. It is 
to be feared that much of our common Christianity is merely 
nominal. There are vast numbers of people among us who are 
unaffected by Christianity, and not a few who stand hostilely dis- 



IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 17 

posed towards it. A pure and unmitigated paganism burst forth 
in the French Revolution, and surges up to the surface at times 
now. The very alphabet of our religion seems to be unknown to 
agitators for social and political reforms. Fashion invades the 
churches. Money for charitable and pious uses is not so much 
given to the Lord, as it is extorted by methods which are really 
not much more effective than they are commendable. The ob- 
servance of Sunday threatens to become obsolete. The practice 
of family worship is thought to be dying out. In short, there is 
much in our modern Christianity which might experience a 
change to the great advantage of us all. A religion which does 
not in the long run advance, can hardly be the true one, for it can 
hardly be alive. Each succeeding generation should not only be 
better instructed in divine things, but should inherit natures made 
more spiritual by the upward struggles of the parents, every such 
struggle working its way as a formative and permanent element 
into the character. How dare we doubt the future ? Surely we 
have not reached the climax of spirituality attainable on earth, 
and just as surely the religious standard is bound to advance till 
that is reached, unless we have entirely misunderstood the teach- 
ings of the centuries. That a better grasp of the doctrine of the 
Church will not play a prominent part in bringing to a realiza- 
tion what we thus hope and long for, few would be rash enough 
to affirm. Other doctrines possess superior dignity ; it is, for in- 
stance, more important to believe rightly concerning the Divinity 
of Christ, and yet the very doctrine now before us is a doctrine of 
Christ, — if what the Scriptures teach is true, that the Church is the 
body of Christ. 

Let us honor the Father by honoring the Son, and let us not 
dishonor the Son by treating His blessed body with disrespect ! 
Is it asked, How far shall we carry this reverence for the incar- 
nate Lord? Opinions will differ, and yet some degree of una- 
nimity will remain. Who could be found of such stern texture as 
to reprove a poor sufferer who should have treasured up a frag- 
ment of that robe, by bare contact with the hem of which her 
health had been completely restored to her? Who can forget 
the universality of that astonishing impulse which fired the heart 
of Europe, and hurled its invincible chivalry upon trembling 
Asia ? Is it impossible for us to comprehend at all the indigna- 
tion with which loving hearts saw themselves excluded from the 



18 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

spots once hallowed by the presence of Him who came to pur- 
chase a Church w T ith His own blood, aud those ever-memorable 
places desecrated by worship paid to Allah in the name of the 
great Arabian impostor? Even now, in this era of progress and 
enlightenment, in this day of utter contempt among so many 
for all that savors of religious sentimentality, who ever beholds 
from the traditional outlook upon Mount Olivet the glistening 
roofs and flashing domes of Judah's ancient capital without a 
thrill of emotion ? Protestant and Catholic alike we throng Pal- 
estine's dusty roads, and delve deep beneath the roots of the 
Holy City, actuated by the common impulse of love to the match- 
less Being who once dwelt among these scenes. Shall the city 
over whose doom His tears were shed be more sacred in our eyes 
than the Church which He came to betroth unto Himself ? If 
anywhere on earth there be such a Church, built upon Himself 
and framed by His own hands, though no other reason could by 
acutest human intellect be even conjectured, yet drawn towards 
that Church by love and reverence for its divine Founder, surely 
with more than crusader's courage, diligence and perseverance 
will we urge on our way through deserts, floods, mountains, and 
hosts of deadliest foemen, till at last our eyes gleam with a delight 
far beyond that which pervaded Godfrey's army when journeying 
onwards from Nicsea, and Dorylfeum, and the long-besieged 
Antioch, they at last beheld the glorious view open out before 
them from the heights above Emmaus. 



CHAPTER II. 

THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 

Two theories are widely held respecting the nature and seat of 
authority within the church, which theories, antagonistic as they 
may seem, let it be our task to reconcile with each other, so far at 
least as to show that they are not mutually destructive ; nor let 
us be dismayed though the discussion should be found to involve 
an examination of the most intricate problems of political science. 
Of these the one searches for all authority in those who occupy 
the seats of the Apostles as being divinely commissioned, em- 
powered, and guided ambassadors on earth of the King of kings, 
the only ones who ought to have any voice in legislation, any 
share in witnessing, or power in administration ; while the other 
seeks this authority in the collective body of believers, maintain- 
ing that the Church of Christ is a society in which reigns perfect 
equality of rights and from which emanates all prerogative of 
ministerial function. And thus the tocsin sounds, warning Mon- 
archist and Republican to range themselves in hostile fronts and 
unsheathe the weapons of religious warfare. Without entering 
into the arena of politics farther than the necessity of the case- 
seems to compel, it is impossible to avoid altogether the dust and 
unpleasant odor of that much-trodden floo". 

The attempt to institute a model government has not yet at- 
tained conspicuous success. As most flattering to human pride 
the theory of popular rule has now the most numerous following 
in many enlightened countries, and daily counts its proselytes with 
much exultation. Just one century since, a republic was intro- 
duced upon the stage of the New World amid the throes of a 
gigantic struggle in which the infant matched its thews and sinews 
with the practiced muscles of earth's mightiest kingdom. The 
babe was no barbarian's child, but the offspring of highly developed 
man, inheriting both noble qualities of head and heart character- 



20 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

istic of the predominating Anglo-Saxon race, and a rich, treasury 
of tradition. Under what more favorable circumstances could any 
republic have begun its career than did the Thirteen States, deeply 
imbued by nature, as descendants of the Commons of England, 
with an invincible love of liberty and a sincere reverence for law 
and order, and guided by such men as Washington, Jefferson, 
Franklin, Hamilton, and the Adamses, men trained under that 
matchless embodiment of common sense and high wisdom, the 
English Common-law ? The Constitution drawn up by students 
of the lore of ages taught by the experiences of their forefathers 
during the Great Rebellion and the despotic rule of the Tudors, 
and adopted by the young commonwealth, was no Utopian scheme 
of a recluse philosopher, but one that ten decades of additional 
experience have hardly been able to improve upon. Yet thought- 
ful and patriotic men hesitate now before pronouncing the attempt 
at democratic government an assured success. The public opin- 
ion, upon the influence of which so much stress has been laid all 
along, has not shown itself adequate to the task of maintaining in 
high places that integrity, purity, and elevation of sentiment, 
which were found when the incomparable hero retired to his an- 
cestral acres to await the summons that should crown Mt. Yernon 
with a halo of sanctity, and of which the continued absence must 
soon realize the novelist's fiction of " Glek-Nas " or " Universal 
Strife-Rot." 

Certain objections can easily be raised against the very theory 
of a democracy. As long as men continue what they are, always 
have been, and seem likely to remain ; as long as the average free 
man is not inaccessible to bribery (if the proffered sum is large 
enough) at the polls, or in the jury-box, or wheresoever ; as long 
as the populace is devoid of wisdom sufficient to decide upon 
intricate points of public policy and international law, of discern- 
ment to pass upon the merits of various candidates for office, and 
above all of self-restraint to prefer definitely, and decisively, 
and in practice, lasting advantage to the mere whim, craving, or 
passion of the hour ; as long, in fine, as the mass of mankind are 
unconverted, some people will strive in vain to satisfy themselves 
that the rule of that mass must of necessity result in advancing 
the highest interests of all. If on the one hand the sway of a 
single, arbitrary will be almost sure to impel the ship of state irre- 
sistibly towards the quicksands of Oriental servitude, on the other 



THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 21 

no rule is so utterly cruel, heartless, unscrupulous, blind, furious, 
and destructive as that of a mob. 

If we look for a perfect form of government we shall search in 
vain, as we shall also if we seek one that is made obligatory upon 
us by any principles of right reason and natural equity. We are 
not born with the right to rule ourselves, but under an imperative 
necessity and a divinely-sanctioned duty to obey our parents ; and 
as the very circumstance of being forced by our birth upon a 
household which owes us nothing but maintenance, protection, and 
education obliges us to conform to the regulations of that house- 
hold in which Divine Providence has placed us, so the mere fact 
of having seen the light for the first time beneath the broad folds 
of our proud flag may be thought to adjust upon our shoulders, as 
by divine mandate, the yoke of subjection to the authority duly 
constituted in this land, whether it be republican, aristocratic, or 
monarchical. The desirable and attainable government upon 
earth is the one in which the balance of conflicting influences and 
interests and powers is best preserved ; in which the advantages of 
all species of governments are most happily combined to the most 
thorough exclusion of their disadvantages. The groundwork of this 
government may be of democratic character, but modified much 
more than it is even now in the United States, by the introduction 
and incorporation of the best elements of autocracy and aristocracy. 

Whatever may be urged concerning the inherent rights of 
man when we are engaged upon matters of temporal rule, the 
most heedless might be expected to pause before transporting the 
same ideas into the religious realm. Shall man talk of his natu- 
ral and inalienable rights before his God ? What right has the 
sinner but the awful claim upon his due share of everlasting tor- 
ment and Almighty wrath ? JSTone whatever. Man may impiously 
rebel against his eternal sovereign, but he will do so at his peril ; 
over all alike, redeemed and unredeemed, reigns one absolute and 
unquestionable and omnipotent and all-wise Will. What rights 
man has are conceded to him in kindness and mercy, not yielded 
as his inherently. If the Church of God be republican in its con- 
stitution, it is so because its Supreme Founder thought best to 
ingraft somewhat of republicanism upon the absolutism of His 
righteous domination, not because it would have been inequitable 
for Him to establish a dominion as absolute as that of Peter of 
Russia or Innocent of Pome. 



22 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

The dangers which threaten dominion everywhere threaten it in 
the religious sphere. If Guizot or Dollinger or Pusey were called 
upon to frame an ideally perfect constitution for a new church, 
they would employ their minds, it may be supposed, in guarding 
against certain known evil tendencies. If there is one of these 
which would tower high above all others, it is the drift towards 
extreme centralization. Place all authority in a caste, and gradu- 
ate that authority in ascending scale until almost irresponsible 
power becomes vested in a very few holding their office for life, 
and visions loom before the startled imagination of the Papacy 
and its Curia. With caste interests, feelings, enthusiasm, the 
priesthood, swaying an influence which flows from the other world, 
controlling the destinies of eternity as well as of time, soon learns 
its power and exerts it with ever-growing un scrupulousness to the 
gradual ruining of its proper usefulness. Waxing fat upon the 
rich food that loads its once frugal board it forgets self-denial, self- 
control, meekness, charitableness, continence, sobriety. Not only 
does the pulpit cease to rebuke vice, or denounces it with such 
faintness that silence were better, but the wicked lives of the 
gluttonous, avaricious, and lustful shepherd infect the flock. Now 
and again a firm hand grasps the reins and retains them long 
enough to ride over many a champion of law and liberty, till in 
the lapse of ages, the caste culminates in a ruler who acknowl- 
edges no restraint, and fears no superior, and submits his conduct 
to no judgment; while far below surges an indiscriminate mass of 
unthinking souls which, renouncing all right to employ the in- 
dividual mind in the search for truth or the determination of right, 
take the law from the priest's mouth so slavishly that Manhood 
slinks away from the pitiful sight. 

On the other side, the perils are scarcely less. Taught that 
no authority resides in the ministry, save what the people may 
see fit to delegate, and thus thrown back each individual upon 
himself as the sole and competent judge of every question of truth 
or duty that may come before him, what shall prevent the man 
from becoming unduly inflated with a sense of his own impor- 
tance, and demonstrating this presently by throwing off all that 
restrains the humble-minded when tempted to stray into for- 
bidden fields or scale unsafe heights; by presumptuously ques- 
tioning all revelation, and resolving mystery and miracle into 
ignorance and credulity; by rejecting all aid from the wise, 



THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 23 

learned, and pious in deciding and explaining the truths of Chris- 
tianity; by spurning at the superstitions of temple and public 
worship, in order to bestow an undeserved exaltation upon the 
fictitious spirituality of unspoken praise and prayer ; and finally 
by leaping the hedges of morality in order to roam at large with 
the plea in his mouth that the notion of wrong is only the mis- 
take of a trammeled intellect ? Yes, dear reader, if the one ten- 
dency has written itself in characters of vivid brightness upon the 
sad pages of Roman story, the other has drawn the outlines and 
begun the shading of a picture that grows darker every hour 
since the mighty convulsion of the sixteenth century set upon 
its feet the principle of democracy well nigh crushed in Europe 
beneath the heel of Leo. Are we not justified, then, in looking 
for some organized society in which neither pure monarchy nor 
pure democracy exists, but a fit blending of the two ? Or shall 
we approach the investigation predetermined to reject everything 
that wears the semblance of the slightest departure from what 
never was realized upon earth, nor ever will be, an absolutely 
pure rule of the 'many f 

Still, the impartial mind must confess, under no circumstances 
can the Church merit the unmitigated abhorrence of the lover of 
liberty. To what but the Church do we owe the universal eman- 
cipation of Christendom from serfdom ? During those ages when 
Liberty seemed to have no shrine in all the earth, those ages 
which awaited the downfall of Constantinople, in order that 
imprisoned learning might break forth and visit the West so 
long immersed in ignorance, what stood forth as the protector 
of the poor, the guardian of the oppressed, the foster-nurse of 
talent, courage, and enterprise? Whither could an aspiring 
youth turn, sure that the obscurity of his birth would prove no 
insurmountable obstacle to advancement ? In what ranks did 
every one stand free and equal, except so far as talent, genius, or 
what was held to be the divine commission, promoted the worthy ? 
Protestantism did not create liberty, any more truly than it did 
the Bible or the Faith. The true idea of liberty, that of scope to 
follow out one's highest interests under the restraint and protec- 
tion of just and wise law, without compulsion or annoyance, this 
is the root idea of the Christian life : it was only natural that this 
conception, vague and indefinite perhaps, but still gradually 
crystallizing, should transfer itself to the civil life. Thus Religion, 



24: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

as understood "by the Christian, becomes inevitably, unless Re- 
ligion herself be sadly mangled, the mother of civil liberty. Such 
has she been always, and such may she continue till the last 
refuge of the oppressor has disappeared before her advance. 

It is time to see what hind of a Church our Saviour did found. 
Towards the close of His visible ministry, He honored His im- 
mediate followers with a charge that has very much the sound of 
a high, distinct, and personal commission, the record of which is 
contained in certain well-known passages of the Bible not to be 
omitted from any scheme of divinity that is to gain the ear of 
such as reverence inspiration. The charge to go into all the 
w r orld, teach, preach, and baptize may have been given to the 
Twelve alone ; and so to them only may have been addressed the 
promise of perpetual presence; but how shall we prove this to 
the degree of certainty that seems to be required by what we may 
call the Monarchical theory of Ecclesiastical Authority ? Even 
admitting that the demonstration can reach a high probability, 
that seems an insecure foundation for the vast edifice we wish to 
erect upon it. No exclusive language is used in any case which 
forbids our imagining that the whole number of the one hundred 
and twenty were present, together with the eleven, when Jesus 
entered the apartment in which they were assembled, or disap- 
peared from their heavenward gaze, and sent down the Holy 
Spirit in cloven tongues of fire ; and it is perfectly apparent that 
the inclusion of a single presbyter or layman, w T ho remained such, 
in the commission, invalidates the whole theory. The utmost 
that can be said is that the eleven are mentioned with a certain 
particularity. Well! Is there no conceivable reason for this 
care to specify that chosen band, except that to them alone were 
the mandatory words spoken ? Besides, such an interpretation as 
is put upon these passages militates against the general drift of 
the Acts and the Epistles, which represent the whole Church, and 
not any particular class within it, as being the special recipient of 
the divine bounty and object of God's loving care and marked 
favor, and moreover as possessing corporate life and delegated 
power. 

But, even granting that to the Apostles alone were originally 
given the commission, the promises, and the Holy Spirit, what 
results 1 They did not suffer the commission to expire with the 
last survivor, nor did they selfishly strive to retain the grace of 



THEORY OF THE CHURCH 25 

God within their twelve souls alone, and the promises manifestly 
stretch on far beyond the brief duration of their lives. On the 
Church's birthday we behold them imparting the gift. of the Holy 
Ghost unto three thousand converts, of whom the great majority 
can hardly be supposed to have been ordained to the ministry. 
At once, then, we have a great number of souls added to the 
Church, and filled with the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, whither- 
soever the Gospel penetrates, the whole multitude of converts 
indiscriminately receive the same gift by the laying on of apostolic 
hands, and become saints, members of the body of Christ, temples 
of the Holy Ghost May we not justly inquire to what intent 
and purpose the Divine Spirit condescended to take up His resi- 
dence in ordinary Christians, the rank and file (so to speak) of 
the great army ? Did He do this merely to satisfy the private 
w r ants of the individual? Emphatically, no! He imparted to 
them His life-giving power in order that they might play their 
parts manfully in the great contest, in order that, being organic- 
ally united with the Head in heaven, they might be permeated 
and invigorated by the divine life, and fulfill each his own func- 
tion in the living body. Whatsoever prerogatives and powers 
the Apostles possessed they transmitted to others, nor solely to 
those who were to govern the Church as their own successors and 
substitutes, but to presbyters, deacons, and laymen, enduing each 
with an appropriate measure of divine grace to enable them to 
stand in their appointed lots. Thus as the Church expanded, 
each and every soul added to it by complete apostolic baptism 
became a vital part of its organism, participating in the duties, 
privileges, blessings, and gifts of the original Twelve ; and this, 
although by hypothesis these were in the first place bestowed 
upon them exclusively. 

Now, is this hypothesis capable of definite establishment ? It 
was shown above that its correctness cannot certainly be deduced 
from the texts which are understood to convey the commission ; 
but that was by no means equivalent to an admission that it can- 
not be proved at all. We need not, however, attempt to demon- 
strate any more than this : if others were present and addressed 
by our Lord on those memorable occasions, then either from fail- 
ure to understand Him, remissness, or faithlessness, no one of 
them ever undertook to exercise coordinate power with the 
Twelve unless by them advanced to the episcopate. If any such 



26 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

instance existed it is exceedingly strange that the world has not 
heard of it. On the contrary all evidence, direct and indirect, 
combines to evince that all power, authority, and grace were un- 
derstood, in the primitive ages, to emanate from the Apostles as a 
necessary intermediate source, sl something not unlike in some 
respects a grand distributing reservoir. We need not surely be 
greatly concerned about what might have happened, if some of our 
modern theorists had been on hand to whisper in the ears of some 
score of disciples, who along with the chosen band witnessed our 
Lord's Ascension, that they had been empowered to act in the 
capacity of leaders and founders as well as Peter, John, or Mat- 
thew ; for none such were there to perplex the Church ; and if the 
idea ever entered their own minds it never resulted in any course 
of action antagonistic to the Twelve, but died still-born. Nor is 
this open to the objection that it is reasoning from what was to 
what ought to have been, for there has been nothing said about 
what ought to have been, a matter which does not directly concern 
us at all. In syllogistic form our argument frames itself with a 
postulate for a minor premiss : All authority to act for God and 
convey His mercies to mankind must come from Him ; and for 
the major : Since the death of the last man who heard the human 
voice of Christ no authority has existed as derived from God 
through any other than the apostolic channel ; from all which we 
are permitted to draw the conclusion absolutely affirming that : 
Since that date no authority to act for God with mankind in 
His Church has existed except such as can distinctly trace out 
its derivation from that intermediate fountain. If Washington 
had been defeated at Trenton, and either taken captive or driven 
into the Delaware, the English would have subjugated the colo- 
nies, and later granted letters patent, under the royal seal, for the 
rich bottom lands of the West ; but Washington was not defeated, 
and the Declaration of Independence did not become the death- 
warrant of its signers, and a grant from King George or Queen 
Victoria would not now entitle the holder to standing room east 
or west of the Mississippi. What might have oeen cannot affect 
what is. 

That this is to a certain extent reasoning backwards need not 
be denied : it does amount in a great measure to explaining the 
Lord's meaning by His hearers' understanding of it, and ascertain- 
ing that by their action under it. If my readers are disposed to 



THEORY OF THE CHURCH. 27 

regard this as unsatisfactory, I join them in saying that it would 
be more satisfactory to build directly "upon an unquestionable in- 
terpretation of His blessed words ; only, unfortunately, that seems 
impossible : wherefore wisdom requires the adoption of the next 
best method, or the best that we can command, which course we 
humbly conceive has now been adopted. 

We must not, however, peremptorily close the investigation just 
where we choose. While this method has thus far largely favored 
the Monarchical theory by establishing the divine authority as 
residing in the ministry, it may presently be seen to carry us 
away in a very different direction. If I mistake not, tolerably 
plain indications of this probability have already insisted upon 
manifesting themselves. If, on the one hand, the Apostles seem 
assured that they have the exclusive power to ordain and to ad- 
minister sacraments and to confirm, and that they also possess the 
right and ability to convey more or less of their priestly authority 
to men who shall rule, administer, and officiate in the subordinate 
orders of the Presbyterate and the Diaconate, they seem no less 
clear upon another point, that the Church is not composed of a 
ministry only. What idea displays itself from the pen of St. 
Luke when he informs us that "the Lord added to the Church 
daily such as should be saved " ? How were they added ? As 
something exterior and extraneous, clinging to the skirts of the 
Church % Surely not ; for is it not also said that the converts 
" continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, 
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers " ? Made by baptism 
and confirmation participants in the wondrous gift of the divine 
Spirit, the laity were admitted into full communion and fellow- 
ship, and invited to unite in public worship and to partake of the 
Lord's Supper. Some portions of the Epistles to the Corinthians 
would be hardly intelligible did we deny to the laity all share in the 
administration of discipline. Can we forget the language of the 
fifteenth chapter of Acts: "Then pleased it the Apostles and 
elders with the whole Church, to send chosen men." Is that con- 
sistent with the exclusion of the laity from all voice in the deter- 
mination of matters of the faith ? Listen above all to St. Jude 
writing unto all those who are " sanctified by God the Father, and 
preserved in Jesus Christ, and called," with the exhortation, 
" That ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once 
delivered " — not to Apostles, not to the ministry, but to the entire 



28 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Church — " to the saints." Indeed, are not all said to be " priests " 
unto God? The laity may not without great sin and danger 
presume to exercise the especial functions of the priesthood, but 
must be in some true and important sense qualified to approach 
near unto their God both in word and act, in order to justify the 
application to them of that title. Is it not almost sure that Con- 
firmation administered according to its original intention is a 
minor species of ordination ? Conveying the Holy Ghost to all 
who had not been baptized by the hands of those who had ordain- 
ing power, did it not bestow upon them enlightenment, guidance, 
and strength from above, and if so, were not their enlightenment, 
guidance, and strength necessary parts of the full measure vouch- 
safed to the entire body ? That the apostolate had more of this 
grace, is no reason why we should pass over in oblivion what 
little the commonalty received, for the inferior species or lesser 
measure may be just as necessary in its way and degree as the 
superior and more abundant. 

Have we not now pronounced clearly in favor of the Demo- 
cratic theory of Church government. If convinced that the 
Spirit is diffused in power and authority throughout the entire 
body, it is natural enough at first glance to lose sight of the 
importance of ministerial authority, under the supposition that 
an organization instinct with the Spirit must be fully competent 
to appoint its own officers. Here, however, it will be prudent to 
tread with extreme caution. Why, we ask, must such a body 
possess that power? There is no reason why God should not 
retain the appointing power in His own hand, and exert it Him- 
self personally or through the medium of agents ; but there is 
sufficient justification for His refusal to man of such unlimited 
liberty as this would imply, to be found in the need there always 
is for many restraints to be put upon the willfulness of our race. 
The pith of the whole matter is perhaps of some such consistency 
as this : the minister is not intended to be the servant of his flock, 
but the ambassador of God, who may often have occasion to use 
the strongest, sternest, severest language of Elijah or Jeremiah. 
His position should be a somewhat independent one, for how else 
shall he summon courage to speak like the austere Baptist, or 
after the pattern of that meek Sufferer who yet denounced woe 
upon the enemies of truth repeatedly and in such awful terms ? 
The preacher of extraordinary fearlessness may, moved only by 



THEORY OF THE CHUROU. 20 

his own unquenchable horror of wrong and love of the right, 
boldly cry aloud and spare not ; but we cannot expect to depend 
for our regular supply of clergymen upon the hope of finding 
extraordinary men ; and even had we thousands of such cham- 
pions, how could they bear up against the contemptuous wrath 
of a people always ready to shout, You are our creatures ! Do as 
we bid you ? How immeasurably better will it be for the people 
to understand plainly that, though they themselves may elect their 
presbyter or bishop, the man of their choice would thrust his feet 
into the shoes of Koran should he presume to stand at the altar or 
the font before God's commission had been conveyed to him by 
apostolic ordination ! If some catastrophe, such as that cruel feast 
of the dying Idumean, should destroy the entire episcopate to a 
man, the Church would have heard its death-knell in the voice 
that carried the news : not all the priests, deacons, and laymen in 
the world could make a single humble deacon, much less a suc- 
cessor to the high seat of an Apostle. To teach the great lessons 
of humility, dependence, and reverence, and to clothe the pro- 
phetic office with the independence necessary for it to act faith- 
fully the watchman's part in Zion, God's wisdom reserved to itself 
the power of putting into ministerial position. 

Then, on the other side, the bishop can effect little or nothing 
without the Church, less, if possible, than the Church without its 
bishop. In a state of excision, he can confirm and ordain, but he 
is as powerless as an unborn babe to bestow the gift of the Holy 
Ghost. In all the old disputes about converts from heretical and 
schismatical sects, the Church never wavered about this matter ; 
there was, it is true, some question as to whether the form of 
schismatical ceremonies and rites was to be repeated, but no 
one seems to have imagined for a moment that an excommuni- 
cated bishop could carry the spirit of peace, order, and law away 
with him in his departure from the One Fold. Those baptized, 
confirmed, and ordained outside of that fold must in some way be 
given the " Peace of the Church," or they remained alien to its 
life forever, and had no share in the divine promises. There is 
held to be such a thing as a corporate life of the Church, some- 
thing which, in close analogy with the physical life, penetrates to 
the remotest extremity of the finest nerve and vein, and resides 
not exclusively in brain, spinal column, lungs, or heart. If the 
head be Christ, it may, perhaps, not improperly be said that the 



30 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Episcopate is a great nerve which conveys to every part of the 
body the mandates of the Lord : sever that nerve, and the body 
becomes atrophied and dies; still the life is not all in one 
nerve, nor in all the nerves together. Besides the connection 
through the nerves, the head is united with the body by arterial 
and venous circulation : similarly from Christ flows through one 
channel authority, through another life. 



CHAPTER III. 

EPISCOPACY. 

Having hitherto assumed that the government of the Apostolic 
Church was of the kind we call Episcopal, we must briefly exam- 
ine the correctness of this assumption. The proof that the Apos- 
tles did transmit their plenary authority to an order of men who 
presently came to be styled Bishops, who alone had permission 
and commission to perpetuate the ministry, and beneath whom 
were the two subordinate orders of Presbyters and Deacons, is 
both Biblical and historical, and so clear, strong, full, and well 
known that a rapid sketch of it will answer every purpose of this 
discussion. That the Episcopal theory satisfies all requirements 
of the sacred text, affording easy and satisfactory explanation of 
the most obscure and indirect allusion, as well as of the direct 
and formal narrative, has been shown so repeatedly that it may 
not be amiss to regard it as a res judicata, at least until the 
numerous and powerful treatises taking this side of the question 
have been adequately answered, and especially until some flaw 
has been discovered in the elaborate argumentation of Bishop 
Cotterill, in his " Genesis of the Church," a work constructed 
according to the methods of modern science, and evolving by the 
inductive process so much lauded now, from a collation of the 
various passages in the inspired writings, that very ecclesiastical 
system at which is hurled the bitterest invective of philosophic 
thought. As for uninspired history, its testimony is, if possible, 
yet more unequivocal ; its whole weight is thrown into the same 
scale. The scholar who can rise from a perusal of the ante-Mcene 
writers with any doubt that Ignatius, Poly carp, Irenasus, Clem- 
ent, Cyprian knew of no other ecclesiastical system, must be im- 
pregnable to any reasoning we can bring to bear upon him. 
Nevertheless, the fact is the contrary position has been main- 
tained by large numbers of learned, able, and pious men, not in- 
ferior to any in extent and accuracy of historical knowledge, nor 



32 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

in general impartialness of judgment, and this state of the case 
calls for a fuller treatment of the subject than it really deserves. 

The view of ministerial authority entertained by the Vatican 
is virtually anti-episcopal, but shall receive a very brief notice 
and a peremptory dismissal. As has been pointed out by the 
learned Barrow and many others, the papal theory is built on a 
series of untenable assumptions : these rival each other in fictitious- 
ness, and yet all must be substantiated, or else the whole fabric 
falls. If a certain supremacy was bestowed by the Master on St. 
Peter, it is still necessary to adduce some proof that this preced- 
ency or supremacy was to survive his own life ; if this be clearly 
established, the next step must be to affix this prerogative to the 
one who should succeed to that particular chair which he occu- 
pied, a matter of extreme difficulty in the eyes of those who 
remember that the Twelve had no metes and bounds of terri- 
torial jurisdiction, and that each probably ordained numerous 
bishops ; and then, this impossible advance having been made, it 
would still remain to demonstrate that St. Peter ever was at 
Rome, and if he was, that he, and not St. Paul or some other 
bishop, ordained Linus or whoever first presided over the im- 
perial city. It is not a breach of Christian charity to affirm dis- 
tinctly that the extraordinary claims of Pome are supported 
wholly upon falsehood and forgery. "What answer can be given to 
the convincing demonstration, or rather to the terrible revelations, 
of "Janus"? Upon "Decretals" wrongly fathered upon Isidore 
of Seville, two centuries subsequent to the archbishop's death, in 
the reign of Nicholas I., who employed them to overwhelm Hinc- 
mar of Pheims ; upon the careless and unscrupulous work of a 
monk of the twelfth century, known as the " Decretum Gratiani ; " 
and upon the celebrated " Donation of Constantine," forged in 
the reign of Charlemagne; upon these and such like clumsy 
and unprincipled efforts to ante-date documents that could only be 
made valuable through that artifice, rests the mighty throne of 
him who, with unblushing cheek, calls himself successor to the 
humble fisherman of Galilee. It must be tolerably safe to dis- 
regard pretensions that have so little self-confidence as to prop 
themselves up with such supports as these. If the primitive 
Church had been papal there would surely be extant some better 
proof of the fact than has yet been forthcoming. 

An opposing theory has adopted a mode of proof not charge- 



EPISCOPACY. 33 

able with double dealing, equivocation, and downright, systematic 
fabrication of testimony like the former, but hardly better able 
than it to square itself with the just and acknowledged rules of 
historical study. "When we ask for some tokens that the Church 
of the first century was Presbyterian or Congregational, what 
more substantial food is put into our mouths, famishing for a gen- 
eral pacification of Christendom, than conjectures wholly unsup- 
ported by reliable testimony? "Where is the smallest fragment 
from apologist, historian, commentator, preacher, theological 
writer, or panegyrist that does not countenance Episcopacy fully 
as much as either an equality of bishops and presbyters, or an 
unmitigated Congregationalism ? Instead of laying before us the 
documentary evidence required as an offset to the almost num- 
berless passages adducible by the other side, the supporters of 
anti-episcopal theories favor us unanimously with a confession that 
we would not have ventured to seek at their hands. 

In the middle of the second century the Church everywhere 
was governed by bishops. Lo ! here is a concession of the whole 
dispute ! If the entire Church at such an early date was episco- 
pally governed, and no proof can be brought forward of any dif- 
ferent state of affairs having at any time obtained, why ! the dis- 
cussion is at end, and drawing in our oars, we may drift placidly 
with the current. Xay, not so. To be sure there is no proof, nor 
even anything that can be tortured into proof, scarcely so much as 
a sentence or a clause that can be taken away from its context and 
twisted and molded so as to look that way, — that any change had 
occurred up to that date ; but ingenuity can be set at work to 
devise some process by which episcopacy gradually supplanted 
the purer and more perfect form of really primitive government, 
and to invent some reason that this should have taken place. And 
so we are treated to elaborate schemes of Episcopal usurpation 
fabricated by active and fertile brains, and that have a general 
aspect characteristic of the compulsory products of hard-pushed 
minds bestridden by favorite theories. Our purpose is by far too 
serious and too kindly to admit of indulgence in ridicule; there- 
fore let us not laugh at the straits of these theorists, but do our 
best to convince them of their mistakes. 

Let us first measure the dimensions of our conceded fact. 
Everywhere the Church in the second century was Ejnscopal. 
One exception, however, has been unearthed by diligence of 



34 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

exploration hardly excelled by Layard or Livingston. In the 
Church of "Alexandria, Jerome is supposed to tell us, the custom, 
had existed from the very days of St. Mark, that when the See 
had become vacant the presbyters should meet together, elect a 
new bishop from their own number, and advance him without 
farther ceremony to the empty seat. Yet Jerome, almost in the 
same breath, says that there is this difference between a bishop 
and a presbyter, that the former has the power of ordaining. 
Now, Jerome does not say that after the bishop had been chosen 
he did not repair to the successors of the Apostles to receive con- 
secration, nor do the words properly imply that he did not so do, 
as any one can see who will be at the pains to consult the ipsissima 
verba of that learned writer. Whatever, though, may have been 
the case at Alexandria, the Alexandria of Cyril and Athanasius, 
the economy of the residue of the churches is not in any doubt 
at all. In the Holy Land, where the Church was cradled, bish- 
ops had ruled in regular succession from St. James. At Antioch 
was a settled episcopate. The seven Apocalyptic Churches bear 
witness to the unvarying custom in Asia Minor. Parthia, 
India, the whole East had bishops, if it had Christianity at 
all. Greece, Italy, Spain, Gaul, Britain acknowledged the 
lawful sway of Apostolic officers. Nor must Northern Africa 
be forgotten in such a survey. How had such a total and unre- 
corded change been effected? Is it not strange that no single 
national Church, with the more than doubtful exception of the 
Alexandrian, had retained the original system? That over- 
mastering influence swept from the farthest Orient, from beyond 
the utmost reach of Alexander's conquering advance, across 
Persia, Babylonia, and Mesopotamia, across Syria, Arabia, and 
Egypt, unchecked by Bosphorus or Hellespont, by Euphrates or 
Po, enveloping Pome, Milan, and Aries in its resistless progress, 
nor stopping till the blue waters of the wide Atlantic rolled before 
it unploughed by keel of believing mariner ; nor left in all that 
boundless territory one smallest society of Christians un visited, 
nor so much as a vestige or a memory to indicate the work it had 
accomplished. Never flood nor sand-storm, avalanche nor lava- 
torrent did its work of effacement so completely. No blackened 
tree-stump, nor unsubmerged peak, nor splintered mast-head, nor 
protruding pillar or obelisk, nor even a gray mound, remained to 
tell the story of what had been. Not a fragment of the broken 



EPISCOPACY. 35 

ship, not a rag of clothing, has been cast up on the shores. Like 
the Cities of the Plain these old institutions have vanished, and 
no eye can penetrate the dense waters to the buried walls over 
which surge the billows of centuries ; not even a Lot has escaped 
to remind us of the past, nor has one single spectator committed 
to tradition even that he beheld the signs of the destruction from 
afar. Are revolutions accustomed to be so complete, instantane- 
ous, and unresisted ? Imagine all Europe converted upon the 
instant into a vast sisterhood of republics, or the United States 
into an absolute monarchy, and all done so thoroughly that every 
one forgot what had been before, never even mentioning the past 
in any hour of discontent, nor telling to the young by the blazing 
hearth the tale of the revolution ! History has not omitted to 
preserve the story of contests for power that broke out among the 
followers of Mohammed almost before he was cold, and continued 
until different caliphates had established themselves by the strong 
hand. What revolution ever took place unheeded and unre- 
corded? Ideas may circulate among the masses for long years 
unnoticed save by a few close and far-seeing students of political 
affairs, but by and by the suppressed forces break forth, the city 
is barricaded, the palace sacked, the Bastile demolished, and a 
Eeign of Terror inaugurated that will be remembered till it is at 
last eclipsed by the awfulness, and horror to the wicked, of the 
Judgment Day. History passes unnoticed the tranquil happiness 
of a prosperous nation, forgetting a whole century of its advance, 
but dwells at length upon the symptoms, incidents, and results of 
the convulsion which arouses it by the summons to arms. Were 
there, forsooth, in the Church of God, endowed as it was with the 
glorious freedom of serving the Lord, deeply imbued with the 
steadfast courage that dreads no pain nor agony, and not deficient 
in independence and vigor of thought, no sturdy presbyters man- 
fully to resist the encroachments of a haughty prelacy, no Jeromes 
to thunder forth in distinct and forcible language rebuke to the 
usurping and grasping spirit of their superiors ? Was there no 
little Netherlands to brave the wrath of their tyrannical sovereign, 
the prince of all usurpers ? Rather let us be sure that Christen- 
dom would fairly have rung with the shouts of the combatants, 
and the latest ages would have stopped their ears at the din. 
Why! Within the first three decades of its life the Church 
began to be torn by the dissensions of such as those who at 



36 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

Corinth disputed St. Paul's authority. Judge from his lan- 
guage concerning these men, whether, if disputes arose about 
ministerial authority, they were likely to disturb the peace of the 
brethren. 

Then, too, it may not be uninstructive to consider the likeli- 
hood of the bishops' attempting to carry out such ambitious 
projects — or presbyters, we should say, inasmuch as by hypothesis 
they are not yet arrived at the dignity after which they are reach- 
ing. "When a man sought the bishopric what honors, privileges, 
aimed he to gain? Let Poly carp answer from the flames of 
Smyrna, or Ignatius from the teeth of the wild beasts to which he 
had surrendered himself in defense of his sheep. Are such the 
men from whom we expect self-interested, avaricious, or ambitious 
conduct ? Did Ignatius raise himself by chicanery, nepotism, 
bribery, and terrorism above his fellow-presbyters in order that he 
might bear the brunt of hatred, persecution, and torture ? The 
confusion of dates is a source of much error. The Roman world 
was not yet converted and enlisted in support of the Cross : it was 
pagan, heartily, thoroughly, madly pagan, and made holidays of 
casting Christians to lions and tigers, besides lighting the way to 
the revels by placing them, pitch-besmeared, at street-corners, in 
lieu of torches. A bishop, to the close of this period, did not 
bask in the genial beams of court favor, but was the grand arch- 
rebel, in the imperial mind, of a band of low-born, obnoxious, 
dangerous conspirators, who was marked for especial hatred and 
direst punishment. Yet we are to understand that such was the 
eager desire for high position, though attended with great danger 
of speedy martyrdom, that on all sides men, forgetful of the dignity 
of their calling, of the humility required from the disciples of the 
Crucified, of the terrible consequence of being found at the last 
beating the men-servants and maid-servants, of the rebuke admin- 
istered to those who would be great in the kingdom of heaven, 
were striving and struggling to make the poor, suffering, perse- 
cuted infant Church a ladder by which to climb into bad preemi- 
nence after the example of Lucifer, a stone on which, to sit and 
inflate themselves until their swelling bulk caught the eye of 
some hungry traveler ! " Credat Judaeus Apella ! " 

Few who have habituated themselves to impartial reflection 
will be blind to the pernicious consequences of thus substituting 
for unbiased investigation of reliable authorities the indulgence of 



EPISCOPACY. 37 

a sportive fancy in unfounded conjecture and most unphilosophic 
theorizing. If such methods are permitted in the making up of 
our history, deplorable will be the results. Let it once be under- 
stood that a total, radical, universal revolution occurred in the 
ante-Nicene period and left behind no trace of the mighty con- 
vulsion, what then will remain to be confidently held and believed ? 
Men will demand to know why other changes may not have 
taken place equally radical and equally forgotten and ignored. 
If the whole constitution of the Church was silently and imper- 
ceptibly altered in a century or two without so much as a 
single fossil remaining to testify concerning the lost forms of life, 
what assurance have we that vital changes were not made in other 
matters; for example, in the most fundamental matters of the 
faith? An honest and well-instructed infidel, upon carefully 
weighing the evidences, would, it can hardly be doubted, say that 
few questions of the highest moment in the whole range of the- 
ology are capable of a more definite determination than this one 
concerning government. Take the catholic doctrine of Christ's 
divinity. Writers can be found as far back as any exist to give 
color to the Arian hypothesis ; nor does it appear that the argu- 
ments in favor of Unitarianism based upon extracts from Tertul- 
lian, Hermas, Justin Martyr, and others, have been demolished by 
the stupendous powers and resources of men like Bishop Bull and 
Dr. "Waterland, one whit more thoroughly than have been by 
others similar arguments against episcopacy. Mark, now, the 
vast accession of probability that accrues to Arianism from the 
fact that more than one thousand years before Presbyterianism 
made its first open struggle, Arianism was on the verge of a 
complete triumph. How came it to pass, men will inquire, that 
anti-episcopacy died so quietly, while Arianism fought for centu- 
ries with the strength, hardihood, and relentless ferocity of a 
tiger? Then turning upon us, will they not continue: "You 
say that the primitive Church was Trinitarian. Permit us to tell 
you that you never made a greater mistake in your lives. The 
early disciples inherited from Jewish ancestors an indignant 
monotheism ; and it was not till the purity of the early creed had 
been sullied by the breath and contact of paganism that this tenet 
began to be obscured. By your leave, Trinitarianism is the 
usurper. "We must regretfully acknowledge that we cannot 
inform you precisely in what year the usurpation became estab- 



38 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

lished, nor can we even exhibit to you a single leaf from the tree 
of original Arianism ; but we can only declare that we are very 
sorry that the upheavals, deluges, and burnings were so terrible as 
to obliterate all traces of the past. We are sure that Arianism is 
right, therefore it must have been the original belief; conse- 
quently, inasmuch as it had to be new-created, it must have 
perished ; and, since no records survive, they must have been 
lost." The ghost of Episcopius thereupon, perceiving upon our 
faces a smile not to be concealed by the most earnest effort of 
courtesy, cries almost fiercely: "If our conjecture is baseless 
and wild, pray tell us how the world happened to awake one 
morning and find itself Arian ! If this doctrine had not all the 
while been surging beneath the surface, how came it to burst forth 
with such impetuosity and in such volume ? " If the supporters 
of the anti-episcopal hypothesis would only pause long enough to 
remember that the various books of the New Testament were not 
definitely and finally collected into one volume till the fourth 
century, the Canon of Holy Scripture having previously been of 
a somewhat fluctuating and uncertain nature, and that many of 
the most important doctrines of the Christian faith were not for- 
mulated till even later, they surely would feel extreme reluctance 
to introduce into the entire proof of our religion such an element 
of uncertainty as they seem disposed to cherish in the bosom 
of fond paternity. 

The fox in ancient fable looking up at unattainable grapes 
pronounced them sour. To constitute Renard the prototype of 
the Continental reformers would be neither graceful nor accurate. 
Yet we must be allowed to feel suspicious of a theory that wears 
every appearance of being an after-thought invented to meet the 
urgent requirements of a hard case. However, the actual respon- 
sibility of its invention must be added to the long list of crimes 
for which Roman ambition and avarice will be accountable before 
the bar of God. Starting from the level of the episcopal brother- 
hood, the so-called successor of St. Peter soon left far behind and 
out of sight the day of his severe rebuke by St. Cyprian, and after 
a time had raised his towering head so far aloft that from the 
elevation of his pride an ordinary bishop's throne seemed no 
higher than the presbyter's seat. The evidence of the existence 
from the very first of a three-fold ministry being so strong that 
even papal arrogance might not disregard it, the only way open 



EPISCOPACY. 39 

out of this difficulty for the upward soaring of the pretender to the 
vicegerency of God was that of consolidating two of the existing 
orders, so that there might seem to be three only, when in reality 
four existed. Seizing upon the fact that language had often been 
employed which embraced the two orders in question within one 
common priesthood, and choosing to ignore the parallel fact that all 
these, being servants and ministers of God, might with entire propri- 
ety be termed deacons or diaconi, the Lord High-Priest of Rome, in 
public document and private letter, indulged his vanity and sought 
to advance his interests by flaunting this fact in the faces of his 
fellow-bishops, telling them with insulting plainness that the whole 
priesthood held its office by the grace, and at the pleasure, of the 
sovereign pontiff. This false theory presently gained control of 
the minds of Western churchmen, till by the fifteenth century it 
was almost universally held among them. Upon disenthralling 
themselves from the iron yoke of the Pope, the Reformers retained 
with little question a theory which suited them so well as did that 
of the equality of rank between Bishop and Presbyter, a theory 
which saved them the trouble and delay which might have at- 
tended the attempt to supply themselves with a valid episcopate. 
Presbyters they had in abundance, for Luther and the other leaders 
of the movement had been almost all of them regularly ordained 
to that office in the Romish Church, but Rome had taken such 
good care to fill the higher positions with her own creatures, men 
who were not likely to display much independence of thought, 
vehemence of zeal, or courageousness of endurance, that bishops 
could not be counted upon to throng the highways of an uprising 
against tyranny and false doctrine. Nevertheless, with such a 
name among them as that of the Prince Archbishop of Cologne, 
Hermann of glorious memory, the reformers could not plead in- 
ability to obtain the Succession. Bishops, however, did not swell 
their ranks in any numbers, and so it was but natural that they 
should gladly close with the teaching that proclaimed them un- 
necessary, and, after they had thoroughly committed themselves 
to this doctrine, earnestly attempt to show that antiquity sanc- 
tioned it. But, as concerns us, when we are able to trace out 
thus clearly the history of its rise and progress, and also have dis- 
covered such weighty inducements to its acceptance, we are not 
justly to be blamed if in our eyes it is enveloped with extreme 
suspiciousness, seeming to bear the stamp of a make-shift brought 



40 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

in to serve a purpose and then supported afterwards with such 
arguments as most readily presented themselves to minds deeply 
interested to make the most of them. 

We take leave of this subject with the remark that a doctrine 
which is wholly unsupported by positive evidence ; which seems 
to be little more than an arbitrary conjecture ; which involves the 
supposition of a revolution, as radical as any that have convulsed 
continents, clearing away, and not leaving behind so much as a 
fleck of mist upon the face of history ; which constitutes men at 
once rapacious demagogues and holy martyrs; which unsettles 
the whole foundation of the Christian faith; and which suited 
so admirably the necessities of both those who, if they did not 
introduce it, certainly revived it after a long period of hiberna- 
tion, and of those who inherited and improved it, is not one that 
the most imposing array of respectable authorities can redeem from 
suspicion ; and furthermore that no alternative seems to remain 
but that of admitting the truthfulness of a theory so capable of 
explaining all the facts that no escape from its conclusiveness 
could be found, but one that does such violence to history, religion, 
and common sense. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 

Much uncertainty in the theological, as well as in the popular, 
mind envelops the question, When did the Christian Church 
begin to exist? This obscurity arises in a great degree from 
steadily repressing the fact that the Christian Church was a con- 
tinuation of the Jewish. Whether it was not the original design 
of God to make the blending more perfect than it really became, 
to transmute visibly the synagogue and temple into church and 
cathedral, — a design which was frustrated through the rejection of 
Him who came primarily to be their Messiah by the bulk of the 
Jewish nation, — may safely be left to the decision of any one who 
will carefully and without prejudice peruse St. Paul's Epistle to 
the Romans, and the Epistle to the Hebrews ; but it is manifest 
that, even as the event happened, after the stubbornness and re- 
belliousness of that perverse race had borne its proper fruit, the 
Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa were scrupulously re- 
spected, reverenced, taught, obeyed, although the Gospel soon 
had its own sacred books ; the old belief was not in any sense 
supplanted, except so far as sophistry had distorted it, but rather 
ratified, enlarged, and elevated by the new Revelation ; the sacred 
rites merely ceased by intrinsic limitation, circumcision, and the 
offering of sacrifices, really finding their prolongation and per- 
fection in Baptism and the Holy Eucharist ; the Aaronic min- 
istry yielded up its functions to the revived Melchisedechian 
priesthood, perpetuating, nevertheless, its threefoldness in the 
three orders of the Evangelical; the observance of special seasons' 
was carried onward with hardly a break, those of divine obliga- 
tion, the Passover, the Feast of Weeks, and the Feast of Taber- 
nacles, passing over into Good Friday and its closely-connected 
festival of Easter, the Christian Pentecost, and Christmas, respect- 
ively ; and finally the entire Remnant, so far as it did not forfeit 



42 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

all claim to be God's peculiar people, was merged bodily into the 
new organization, only losing its own identity to the extent im- 
plied in a mighty advance, and an incorporation into itself of the 
surrounding nations, according to those wonderful and glorious 
prophecies which cheered the darkest day of Israel with promises 
that the Light would shine from Zion, and all nations come flow- 
ing unto it. Born of Jewish parentage, born under the Law, 
born heir to the throne of David, and to the whole circle of Mes- 
sianic prophecies, Jesus, son of Mary, and putative son of Joseph, 
bowed His own neck to bear the yoke of rite, ceremony, and ob- 
servance, beginning His obedience on the eighth day of His infant 
existence, and not intermitting attendance, at hazard of His life, 
upon the services of the temple at Dedication or Passover, till 
that solemn evening on which He partook of the last Paschal 
meal, and then went to the garden of the Betrayal. His own 
ministrations were, at least mainly, confined to descendants of 
Jacob, and not extended beyond the territorial limits of the 
Promised Land ; and so were those of His commissioned disciples, 
not only during His life on earth, but for years thereafter. To a 
man, the Twelve were Jews, and so probably were the Seventy. 
Thus, it being true that, while as the Eternal Son of God Jesus 
Christ might well have founded a Church entirely de novo, He 
nevertheless chose to follow the analogy of His own regulations 
for the ancient Church, and thereby present to mankind a most 
striking instance and evidence of the continuity of His dealings 
with them ; we cannot be surprised that the exact point of time 
at which the waning brightness of the evening saccumbed to the 
twilight of the dawn cannot be definitely determined to the satis- 
faction of everybody. 

The road out of the difficulty follows for much of its length 
the curves of a causeway lately erected by us. We have seen 
that a wide difference exists between authority and life. The 
Blessed Master left the one behind Him when He disappeared 
from the Mount of Ascension ; but the other He conveyed not 
until, having gone up on high and received gifts for men, He sent 
in His stead that Divine Spirit which rested in cloven tongues 
upon the assembled disciples. It is true that an objection might 
be grounded upon that most solemn act of our Lord, in breathing 
upon the disciples, with the significant words, " Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost ; " but must that not have been a prospective dona- 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 43 

tion, one anticipatory of the approaching day of His actual be- 
stowment, conveying not the actual gift, but only the power to 
receive it ? The only recorded act, we can safely affirm, of the 
Apostles during the period of their waiting, which can be con- 
strued into evidence, that they supposed themselves to have al- 
ready had imparted to them the "Promise of the Father," in 
reality rather negatives such a supposition, — the election, by lot, 
of a successor to the apostate Judas. 

The Day of Pentecost, immediately succeeding the Passover 
on which her Lord was crucified, was the birthday of the Church. 
What life the Church had previously was ante-natal. On that 
memorable day came to the birth, and was safely ushered into 
independent existence (if its present existence can in any sense be 
called independent), that little infant which was soon to grasp so 
vigorously, while yet in its cradle, the swelling throat of the forked- 
tongued adversary, and go forth to cleanse the Augean stables of 
pagan abomination, and deliver the earth, one after another, from 
the vices that made havoc over its surface. Vivifying originally 
the congregated band in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, this 
heaven-descended life soon extended itself to the three thousand, 
and from that time onward invigorated the multitudes who were 
daily added to the Church. Authority had rested upon the 
Twelve before. One had gone " to his own place," and thereupon 
the authority had been transferred and imparted to the one who 
stood up in his stead ; but thus far the authority had been little 
more than a blank form ; now, however, substance is infused there- 
into, and the little band becomes a living body, duly incorporated, 
and shielded by the arm of Jehovah. Before the Day of Pen- 
tecost, the sacraments, rites, and duties specifically Christian 
existed not, save in an inchoate form ; from that date Christian 
Baptism began to be administered, confirming hands to be laid 
upon those baptized, and the Holy Communion to be consecrated. 
John's baptism of repentance was now replaced by that of water 
and the Spirit. The disciples of Christ bestowed no longer the 
comparatively barren form upon penitents, but washed away 
their sins in the blood of the Lamb, regenerated them in the 
fountain of eternal life, and gave them the precious gift of the 
indwelling Paraclete ; all which operations were impossible until 
Christ had paid the infinite price, conquered death, carried His 
triumphant and glorified humanity into His Father's presence, 



44 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

and by Him been rewarded with the power of sending down the 
Spirit of life, and truth, and comfort. 

Thereafter, almost imperceptibly, and contesting every foot of 
ground, Jewish ceremonies vanished from the midst of the 
Church. That converts from Judaism should have been slow to 
surrender the traditions of centuries is not greatly to their dis- 
credit ; some, perhaps, will regard that steadfast adherence to the 
past as a bright testimonial to the solidity, loyalty, and reveren- 
tialness of the Jewish character. Even the vehement Paul lends 
countenance to this last view, when he circumcises Timothy, and 
shaves his own head at Cenchrsea, because he has a vow. This 
most zealous and utterly fearless man will not suffer any such 
burden to be laid upon the unaccustomed back of the Gentile 
converts, but will not forbid the Jewish to struggle along under 
the unnecessary load of a burdensome ceremonial, if their con- 
sciences prompt them to make the attempt, so long as God has 
not given visible token that the old has passed away. The rent 
veil, exposing to unhallowed gaze what none but the anointed eye 
of God's High Priest might behold, was a hardly mistakable sign 
that the Almighty was displeased with His people, or was passing 
from them ; but, still, was not the predicted flash of lightning 
shining from east to west, and clearly revealing the close of the 
Mosaic dispensation. That flash lit the sky when Titus's sol- 
diery hurled the prohibited brand against the sacred edifice and 
wrapped it in the blaze of annihilation ; when chain, and lash, 
and cross tore the famished survivors from the ruins of their 
country's pride ; when the stern edict of an exasperated tyrant 
scattered priest, and Levite, and people over the whole globe, 
divorcing them by the might of irresistible force from the duty of 
an impossible obedience to an extinct law administrable only by 
a priesthood that had perished. 

Once born, the Church grew with amazing rapidity. It has 
often happened to new religions to spread far and wide in a sur- 
prisingly short space of time : that founded by Gautama Buddha 
did this, and so did that one which was dandled upon the knees 
of the licentious prophet of Mecca. To account for such phe- 
nomena natural causes can alone be called in by those who dis- 
believe in the doctrines advocated ; nor need we hesitate to say 
that the case of Mohammedanism, for example, is adequately 
explained by these. A religion which promises unlimited sensual 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 45 

indulgence hereafter at the easy cost of not very onerous outward 
observances, and carries a naked sword in its hand, can claim with 
very poor grace that its triumphs could only have been achieved 
by the favor of Heaven. Surely, the forbearance of Heaven and 
the aiding hand of hell are more likely to have brought about the 
result ! Causes for the rapid progress of Christianity more credit- 
able to humanity than these, but yet just as far from being super- 
human, have been discovered, and set forth with remarkable 
power, by the great historian of the Decadence, the wide circu- 
lation of whose incomparable work necessitates the turning of our 
attention to the question involved. 

Christianity certainly was favored by circumstances of no 
inconsiderable moment, such as the opening up by commerce and 
the military arm of numberless channels of communication, the 
wide diffusion of the Latin and Greek tongues, the culmination 
of Roman civilization, the central position of Palestine, universal 
peace, and the mysterious prevalence of a general sighing after a 
deliverer; and likewise by the nature of the religion itself, which 
in its profound, hopeful, pure, and lofty doctrine, in its admirable 
organization, and in the unselfish, noble spirit it inculcated and 
created, met the higher requirements of humanity, and forged the 
weapons of success. But some of these causes which are supposed 
to account for its swift advance proceed upon a forgetful ness that 
what will give currency to a religion already established may 
rather impede than assist its early rise. Shall one ignore the 
patent fact, for instance, that the same road upon which mission- 
aries journeyed afforded equal facilities for couriers to travel with 
the persecuting edicts of the emperors ? Then, too, the whole 
argument rests upon the extraordinary fallacy that the human 
heart generally chooses the good when it recognizes it, and follows 
it out when chosen ! Who is there that can credit the statement, 
that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul disposed the philo- 
sophic mind favorably towards the new creed, if he recollects the ex- 
perience of St. Paul on Mars Hill ? Or who can agree with Gibbon 
when he speaks of the high tone of morality in the early Church as 
rendering the faith attractive, that has not blinded himself to that 
strange weakness and perversity of our race which makes us cling to 
the evil even while we see and approve and love the opposite ? 
The honest philosopher will rather admit that the foes which 
confronted the Church of the Apostles were simply gigantic. 



46 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

No more bitter adversaries assailed the first missionaries than 
their own brethren according to the flesh. So thoroughly had the 
teachings of the rabbis warped and distorted Judaism that it 
seemed to have faced about entirely, and to have forgotten the 
very purpose for which it was called into the field, or rather to 
have marshaled itself in deadly hostility to that design. True, 
God's will was not thwarted, for Judaism had really been the 
means of preparing for the reception of the Gospel the hearts of 
the faithful few ; but for the vast majority, that which should 
have been to them for their best advantage and highest gain 
became unto them an occasion of falling into endless ruin. The 
strongest sentiments of the average Jew had become a boundless 
pride in his own ancestry, coupled with an intense contempt for 
all who were not children of Abraham, and an eager longing for 
the resuscitation and expected augmentation of the faded glories 
of David's kingdom ; and we are to be told that the Jewish nation, 
after cherishing such sentiments for a thousand years, after hug- 
ging such fond delusions during a long exile and continuous 
period of oppression and the heroic struggles of the Maccabean 
era, was likely to close eagerly with the offers of a prophet who 
had come to throw open the gates of the inner court to those 
who were despised as Gentiles or Barbarians and to destroy for- 
ever the hope of a conquering monarch ! The new doctrines 
were utterly abhorrent to the carnal mind of Pharisee, and 
Sadducee, and Herodian alike, so that one and all they forgot their 
various disputes in order to unite in deadly league against the 
hated Nazarenes. As they treated, in their wanton cruelty, the 
Master, so dealt they with the disciples. Having crucified Him, 
they stoned, beat, dragged on the pavement, crucified these. 
Greedily snatching at the faintest gleam of hope offered by an 
obscure Gaulonite, they slew the true Jesus and hunted down His 
servants with the mad zeal of the unconverted Saul, improving 
against them every opportunity of false accusation or seditious 
gathering w r hen unable to use open violence, and dogging their 
steps from city to city. At other times, changing their tactics, 
they even feigned themselves to be Christians in order to sow 
disturbance in their counsels. This was the way in which Judaism 
took her younger sister by the hand and assisted her tottering steps. 

But if thus thoroughly did the disguise of a carpenter's garb 
hide the purple robes beneath from Hebrew eye, not less effectu- 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CEUllCU. 47 

ally did the dark shadow of the ignominious cross conceal the 
royal diadem that encircled the meek brow of the despised Naza- 
rene from him whose demi-gods achieved their apotheosis by 
dazzling exhibitions of superhuman prowess. If the inversion of 
all their expectations smote with leaden weight upon the heart of 
the Jew, becoming a stumbling-block in his path ; not less was 
the idea of a "Crucified God" calculated to draw down the 
ridicule of the polished, self-satisfied, sneering Greek, or the 
haughty and luxurious Roman. The opposition of the Gentile 
world may have been several shades less virulent, but it could 
hardly be called less determined. And it was the very excluslve- 
ness, which the historian ranks among the causes favoring the rise 
of Christianity, that fanned the hatred into its deadliest glow. 
Was the Queen City to suffer dictation ? Was she obediently to 
empty her Pantheon, driving her gods from their ancient abode? 
Without much reluctance she might have added a niche or two 
that would hardly have been noticed among the many ; but when 
bidden to cast earthward the occupants of all, and enthrone in 
their stead a Deity that absolutely prohibited the making an 
image of Him, she listened a moment stupefied with amazement, 
and then uttered one prolonged yell of defiance and wrath that 
shook the arches of heaven until Constantine's Labarum led the 
victorious legions. Polytheism did not quietly lay itself down 
and peacefully expire as soon as a purer religion stepped upon 
the stage, but summoning to its side the embattled hosts of hell, 
it fought for supremacy with the desperation of the hopeless, and 
the craft and malice of the damned. If the antiquated mythology 
had in some degree lost its hold upon the votaries of Zeus and 
Jupiter, these votaries were not thereby turned over as fields 
ploughed and harrowed, ready for the scattering of the good seed; 
but rather, like exhausted soil fit only to produce briers and weeds, 
abandoned to the occupancy of those demons, Indifference and 
Skepticism. 

Perverted Judaism and rampant paganism were, after all, but 
two manifestations or incarnations of the one invisible opponent, 
human sinfulness, which must now be arraigned before the bar 
of our judgment. Sin, it does not need to be said, was the great 
antagonist of the truth, and fallen humanity is wofully sinful. 
Humanity had bestridden vice, and careered through the world 
for centuries, and may have suffered from the fatigue incident to 



48 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

such a chase ; but was it in the humor to leap from the saddle 
and buckle on the breastplate of Christian warfare ? Jaded, dis- 
appointed, sick, would it not rather seek the couch of indolence, 
or the exhilaration of continued motion, content that it be down- 
ward, so long as speed and ease were assured ? Ancient philoso- 
phy, or modern, never made a greater mistake than in imagining 
that knowledge is the one all-sufficient remedy against sin. If 
the great sages of Athens erred conspicuously, it was in advocating 
this superficial notion. To the believer, at least, such a notion is 
utterly untenable. To say that man at first sinned through ig- 
norance, is to lay down the whole responsibility of the fall at the 
doors of Heaven. He yielded to temptation, not because he did 
not know that he was being enticed to wrong-doing, but from 
lack of determination to resist the strong craving he permitted to 
arise in his soul. If, in his innocence, man admitted vice into his 
bosom, it is hardly possible that pure disgust at the conduct, and 
impatience of the influence, of the guest should result in the ex- 
pulsion of that insidious tenant. Let a thoughtful person survey 
carefully the Rome of Augustus, and then declare to us where in 
that slough of all abominations he discovers the promise and po- 
tency of reform. Had St. Paul gone to the Rome that trembled 
at the advance of the Punic champion and yet publicly thanked 
the general that did not despair after the field of Cannse, such a 
scrutiny might be conducted with some hopefulness; but now, 
after two centuries and a half had elapsed from that heroic epoch — 
centuries of almost uninterrupted decline; now that valor, and 
discipline, and integrity, and frugality, and manliness had for- 
saken degenerate Rome, wrapped in a gorgeous mantle that only 
served for a time to withdraw attention from the mummy within, 
what possibility is there that the shorn Samson will arise and shake 
himself with any valuable result? In bigoted Pharisaism, in 
Asiatic softness, in Roman effeminacy, and in Grecian pride of 
intellect, Christianity encountered the worst forms of wickedness ; 
tyrants which held their slaves in such abject bondage that very 
few indeed could hope to escape by their own exertions the hideous 
progeny of Sin and Satan, whose devilish strength would cer- 
tainly have overmastered any religion that did not come against 
them armed with superhuman strength infused by the One who 
commissioned it to go forth and subdue the world. 

And now let it not be thought that we have laboriously de- 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 49 

monstrated that the new religion could not succeed. We have in- 
deed striven to show that it could not have prospered as it did, had 
it depended upon natural causes alone. Beautiful and complete 
as its doctrinal system is when once accepted as true, it has cer- 
tain features indicative of supernatural strength and derivation 
which prevent its ready acceptance. The grandeur of the Incar- 
nation, the unutterable love displayed in the Atonement, and the 
marvelous exhibition of power in the Resurrection move so high 
above the level of ordinary thought that the natural mind falls 
back stunned and incredulous from the attempt to believe them 
true. Far removed as are these facts from common experience, 
so far above the commonplace must be the means by which they 
are proved. To the Israelites Christ came fulfilling the minute 
predictions uttered by their prophets hundreds of years before. 
This mode of convincing the children of the Law, He Himself 
stamped with the mark of special approval by His method of in- 
structing the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. To Jew and 
Gentile, indifferently, He gave the persuasive eviden'ce of mira- 
cles, communicating the power of working these signs and won- 
ders to His followers. The divine perfection of His own charac- 
ter and the superior virtue of His disciples afforded additional 
testimony to the verity of His teaching. But above all, the active 
cooperation of the Holy Spirit with the evangelist in his efforts 
to convince and persuade was indispensable in breaking down the 
barriers of sin, and melting the hardened heart, and convincing 
the prejudiced understanding. Not prophecy, nor miracle, nor 
manifest holiness, nor persuasive preaching was able to produce 
any deep and permanent impression upon hearer or spectator, 
unless the Almighty Spirit went forth over the assembly in per- 
vading influence and prevailing power, not destroying man's free- 
dom of mental operation, it is true, but modifying it as a very lovely 
song modifies the play of emotion, or as proffered skill alleviates 
the diseased action of the physical system. Yes, let the doctrine 
be the product, not of the best human wisdom, but of the divine 
mind itself, and ever so well adapted to meet the desires of the 
spiritual nature, yet could it never have stricken its roots into 
the subsoil of this planet, though propped by whatsoever strength 
of testimony, had not the heavenly Dove itself brooded constantly 
over the fragments of a ruined world, bringing order out of chaos, 
and fertility out of utmost barrenness. 



50 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Nevertheless the Paraclete works largely through human 
agency, and employs natural causes, so that when once we have 
duly ascribed to God the honor that belongs to Him, and pro- 
tested with becoming vehemence against the rationalizing process 
that robs Him of it, we may embark courageously upon an in- 
quiry which is not without its importance, Why did the Church 
grow so much more rapidly in its infancy than it has ever done 
since ? Can it be that it soon attained its prescribed dimensions, 
and then became stationary in size as the full-grown man is? 
Not so, for the Church was given a clear and comprehensive title 
to the length and breadth of the earth. 

Undoubtedly, a remarkably rapid immediate expansion was 
provided for by the Master Himself; and this in two ways that 
command our attention. First, the Lord effected this by supply- 
ing the Church with a devoted band of missionaries trained under 
His own eye, and endowed with an adequate measure of divine 
grace for the special emergency ; and secondly, by arming these 
early preachers with extraordinary control over forces, laws, and 
even persons, both of the natural and of the supernatural universe. 
Still the rate of the Church's progression subsequent to this era was 
such as to have been unexampled since, except in a few cases sepa- 
rated by long intervals. Curiosity and the love of useful knowledge 
both urge an examination of the causes of this quick expansion. 

Of the three marked features of the infant society which most 
powerfully conduced to this fortunate result, the first that we shall 
notice will be its admirable organization ; which at once, by its 
democratic character, called into play the best energies of all its 
members, lay as well as clerical, and by the autocratic power of 
the episcopate directed these awakened energies surely, unosten- 
tatiously, and promptly into the proper channels. Defective 
execution is said to be the characteristic vice of democracies ; these 
consequently often resort to the expedient of appointing a tem- 
porary dictator in order to insure the concentration and vigor which 
are necessary in the conduct of a campaign. The cause of the 
Gospel must have equally suffered from diffusion of authority had 
the pristine organization really been the democracy some would 
make it; and the reason it did not languish and die was that 
every missionary enterprise had a single head to manage its 
affairs. In the dispute of Paul and Barnabas we see that even 
two controlling wills were not as good as one so soon as the band 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 51 

numbered more than two persons. The mother Church accord- 
ingly was soon put under the rule of James, while the Apostles 
generally went out singly, founding churches here and there, and 
establishing each after the invariable pattern which we behold at 
Ephesus, with Timothy at its helm and the requisite number of 
presbyters and deacons under him. Thus unity of design per- 
vaded all the efforts of any given church. The bishop, consulting 
with his college of presbyters, decided what line of action should 
be adopted, and then himself directed how that should be carried 
out, appointing to each subordinate his own station and charge 
in garrison and field. Thus by concerted action was individual 
energy made to tell most effectively upon the foe, who, instead of 
being able to practice the tactics of the surviving Horatius, was 
compelled to face a compact and disciplined enemy. 

Again, in those happy days, all who " ran " were " sent " by the 
same authority, so that when one "company of preachers" had 
made some progress in converting unbelievers, another did not 
come upon the scene, thinking it their bounden duty to overturn 
all that had been accomplished and establish a new sect if not 
another Christianity, and thus thoroughly confusing the neophytes, 
and drawing from them the uncomplimentary exclamation, Be- 
hold how these Christians abhor one another ! Evidently such 
conduct on the part of missionaries may not only be laudable but 
absolutely necessary ; since that heresy and schism already occupy 
the ground, is sometimes all the stronger reason that truth and 
unity should forthwith assert their claim to universal allegiance, 
inasmuch as error may be more fatal than ignorance ; and when 
the duty has been put upon the Church of preaching the glad 
tidings everywhere, she may not shrink from its performance on 
the plea that others have done the work imperfectly and mis- 
takenly. Still such hostile presentations of the Gospel of peace 
and love must have an injurious effect upon those to whom they 
are made, and strongly tend to render them callous to the moving 
appeals of the religion of the Crucified. They may be either so 
contradictory as manifestly to be mutually destructive, or so 
similar that nice discrimination tasks itself to distinguish between 
them : in the first case the untutored intellect, not skilled in the 
combats of the schools, will refuse to believe in the divine descent 
of a religion that leaves its votaries so deep in the fog that they 
hold mutually destructive views of its most important doctrines 



52 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

and mysteries ; and in the latter, the savage heart will fail to be 
impressed with the loveliness of a rule of life which seemingly 
permits its subjects to retard the great work of regenerating the 
world, by spending their time and exhausting their energies in 
wretched quarrels about minor differences. The pernicious influ- 
ence of such bickerings as are common among rival denominations, 
is sure to be even greater upon those souls which are already com- 
mitted by the memories of a lifetime to the course of persistent 
rejection, well furnished with arguments against the Church's faith 
and order, and animated by the deadly hatred of the truth which 
the father of lies especially infuses into those who, having 
enshrined much truth in a larger amount of falsehood, call the 
whole by the name of the smaller portion. Savage and civilized 
alike, unchristianized mankind bars the portals of its heart against 
the entrance of contending emissaries, very properly waiting for 
some certification that, once admitted, they will not continue the 
unappeasable strife, carrying havoc where they should sow 
brotherly kindness and charity. Much as the early herald of the 
Cross had to contend against, he had not to dread an attack in the 
rear. His foes were all in front. He might be starved, plundered, 
beaten, imprisoned, burned, torn to pieces, crucified, but not 
stabbed in the back by his own brethren. The missionary enter- 
prises of the Church, till Arius set up his seditious standard, were 
backed by the whole moral force of the Lord's army, and conse- 
quently flourished and grew like the mustard-seed of the parable. 
Lastly, the fold of Christ in apostolic, and in all ante-Nicene, 
times was girt with a wall of fire, through which all must dart 
who would seek refuge within. Lit by its enemies, this barrier 
served as a most effectual protection to the Church against the 
inroads of such as would have proved themselves false friends 
and ready betrayers. In all periods she has had no worse foes 
than her own disloyal children — disloyal because all sin is rebellion 
against God and His Only-begotten Son. Men do not judge a 
fruit-tree by its size, shape, bark, or leaves, but by its fruit ; so, 
rightly or wrongly, they decide upon the merits of a Church, not 
so much by the number upon its rolls, by the character of its 
doctrine, by its form of worship, or pureness of descent, as by the 
success it seems to have in molding the lives of its adherents into 
uprightness and piety. A wicked member can do more positive 
injury to a Church than a hundred assailants. In freedom from 



CONTINUITY AND RISE OF THE CHURCH. 53 

the pollution, reproach, and harm brought upon an organization 
by unruly members, the primitive Church was peculiarly happy : 
for this she has to thank the brutality of Nero, the policy of 
Trajan, the honest abhorrence of Decius, the criminal weakness 
of Diocletian ; or rather the God who makes all things conspire 
in advancing the welfare of those who love Him, and converts 
the weapon of the persecutor into a shield for the persecuted. 
Great sinners unquestionably harassed a communion into which 
they had intruded, or from which their backslidings should have 
constituted them self-expelled, as far back as Judas; but they do not 
seem to have disturbed it in any great numbers, and were 
promptly subjected to discipline, so that the body might be de- 
livered from scandal. Bad as may have been that Corinthian 
Church, which was so severely rebuked by its Apostle, its average 
morality must have been immeasurably above that of the sur- 
rounding heathen population wholly surrendered, as that was, 
to lasciviousness and universal excess. If it lacked something of 
the perfection evolved by eighteen centuries of continuous Chris- 
tian civilization, Porphyry or Julian could hardly cast up against 
the despised sect a deficiency measurable only by a standard of 
which they did not dream. The Gospel net inclosed good and 
bad then as well as now, but the opposers lashed the surface with 
such fierceness that most of the latter were frightened away and 
driven beyond soundings. Wheat and tares in those days were 
seen growing side by side, but greater care than now was taken 
to eradicate the latter as far as prudence allowed. Discipline 
was administered with a fearlessness that knew no restraint but 
that of anxiety to reclaim the erring. Trusting her cause to God, 
and careful for nothing save to retain His favor, the struggling 
Church of the first three centuries scourged her sons, when she 
thought they needed it, with merciful, but impartial and unspar- 
ing hand. Instead of indolently and faithlessly suffering them 
to run on from bad to worse, imperiling their own hopes of salva- 
tion, and bringing endless disgrace upon their negligent parent ; 
or only checking them with the voice of admonition, so little 
likely to be heeded by those who most need it, she put herself to 
the trouble of inflicting upon the disobedient such punishments as 
were within her power, publicly rebuking, suspending, excom- 
municating them. This course often resulted in the reform of 
the transgressors, always redounded to the edification of the rest 



54 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

of the congregation, and washed in a great measure from the 
skirts of the Church what stains she had incurred from their con- 
taminating presence. Thus, environed with the barrier of perse- 
cuting hatred, and sedulously fulfilling the part of a tender 
mother, the youthful Church smiled upon the world that sought 
to slay her, pure, calm, triumphant. 



CHAPTER Y. 



MANICHiEISM. 



It must not be inferred from anything said in the last chapter 
that no counterfeit of the truth obtained currency before the arch- 
heretic of Alexandria dared to blaspheme the Son of God ; yet 
what might pass for counterfeit coin was rather a professed imi- 
tation than a deliberate imposture. As might have been antici- 
pated, the earliest departures from the truth were in the line of 
Mosaism, being attempts to engraft the new upon the old. Hence 
arose the effort, so repugnant to St. Paul, of bowing the necks of 
Gentile converts to bear the iron yoke from which the galled 
shoulders of the Hebrew were soon to be delivered. At about 
the same time originated the Ebionites, holding the low material- 
istic view of the Incarnation which confessed in Jesus no more 
than a mere man ; and its complementary falsehood which was 
embodied by the Docetse in the spiritualistic notion that Christ 
had no physical existence, but only seemed to be flesh and blood. 
These and other heresies of that period left little lasting impress 
upon the Church or the world, and may be remanded by us into 
oblivion. 

More deserving of our attention by far were certain schools of 
speculative religion that early nourished outside the Church, 
without even pretending to belong to it; and therefore were 
heresies in scarcely any truer sense than the Buddhist or the 
Mussulman could be called a heretic. In the Asia of the ante- 
Mcene epoch three distinct classes of religious philosophy pre- 
vailed and disputed with Christianity the homage of man's mind. 
First, there was the ancient faith of the Hebrew nation, sadly 
corrupted by unauthorized glosses ; then, there were added the 
dreamy speculations of the Oriental imagination concerning the 
Supreme Being, the origin of things, and other unsearchable 
mysteries ; and lastly, there entered the arena Neo-Platonism, a 



56 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

strange conglomerate itself of the various philosophies of Greece 
and perhaps half a dozen other beliefs, as they had been melted 
down and run together by the heat of violent contact. Acting 
seemingly as a most powerful solvent, Christianity reduced all 
these to their constituent elements, and without intending such a 
result, adding a few parts from her own substance, gave the world a 
new mineral, which she herself found it afterwards very difficult to 
decompose with any re-agents she could apply. Thus was born 
Gnosticism, a most ungainly offspring, itself the fertile parent of 
numerous sects. Gnosticism exercises unbounded liberty in 
stocking its Pleroma with superhuman beings, which it causes to 
emanate from a dualistic source, and dubs JEons. This system, 
or rather this congeries of systems, it was which gave so much 
annoyance to the youthful Church, and drew the lire of such men 
as Irenasus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, who held up its ridicu- 
lous tenets to the contempt of their own and all succeeding ages. 
These sects seem to have been destitute of vitality. After making 
considerable noise for a time, they gradually disappear, and then 
reviving a few times, as in Spain under the name of Priscillianists 
during the fourth century, die down again and are heard of no 
more. 

More potent and lasting was a sect that arose in the third 
century at the court of Sapor, the Persian monarch. Having 
lately escaped from the rather galling domination of Parthia, 
Persia had become the scene of much revolutionary movement. 
An earnest attempt was made, with partial success, to revive the 
ancient religion of the Achsemenian court. A religion was 
made the established creed of the Sassanian Empire which was 
intended to be the same that had flourished under the former 
dynasty five centuries before ; but into it had really entered many 
an extraneous element borrowed from alien faiths. Indeed, it is 
hard to give any specific title to the resulting compound. Zoroas- 
trianism it was not, for that, originally at least, was monotheistic, 
and this was dualistic ; Magian, strictly speaking, it was not either, 
for that was almost purely a worship of the elements, and this had 
adopted Ahura-mazda and Angro-mainyus, and revered those two 
antagonistic deities besides adorning the mountain heights with 
picturesque altars to the " Lord of Day." The reviver of this 
Mithraic cult was Artaxerxes, the restorer of the empire ; and to 
him is due the celebrated sacred volume of the Zendavesta. His 



majstich^ism. 57 

son and successor, Sapor L, was likewise an enthusiastic Zoroastrian. 
But, though thus given a decided predominance, the faith of the 
Magians had not driven its rivals from the field. Judaism itself 
seemed to enter upon a new life in the Talmudic schools of Baby- 
lon ; Buddhism was known outside of India ; Grecian polytheism 
had not been forgotten ; Christianity had made its converts ; and 
many an other system or half-system of religious belief challenged 
the attentive study of earnest souls. About the year 270 a. d. a 
certain Manes, of a naturally eclectic mind we may well suppose, 
having by fusion of these evolved a new doctrine which was more 
satisfactory than any of them to his judgment or his pride, 
broached his invention to the monarch, and won his favorable 
attention for a time, but was soon compelled to flee. He returned 
under Hormisdas, and was put to death under Yarahran, thus 
completing his public career as the founder of Manichseism in less 
than five years ; a short course to run, but long enough to give the 
initial impulse to his strange system of half- Christianized Zoroas- 
trianism, an Eclecticism having Dualism for its basis with Chris- 
tianity patched on as an after-thought. The sect which took his 
name presently united its forces with those of the Marcionites, 
Basilidians, Valentinians, and other Gnostic tribes in a sort of 
partisan warfare against Christianity. Its stronghold continued to 
be in the East, where it spread over Persia, Armenia, and other 
countries, till it gathered head enough to excite the animosity of 
the Empress Theodora, who threatened it with extermination. 
Rebounding, however, from this depression, it either crossed the 
Black Sea or followed the curve of its shores, and obtained secure 
footing in Bulgaria, being now known as Paulicianism. Thence, 
reinforced by various colonies transplanted by imperial power 
from Syria and elsewhere into Thrace and the regions adjacent, it 
penetrated into Italy, and then into Germany, Spain, France, and 
all corners of Europe, concealing its pernicious doctrines under 
various names, of which Albiyenses is said to have been one, and 
continuing to vex the Church perhaps down to our own day. 

Both Gnosticism and Manichseism were rooted in the belief of 
two equal and antagonistic Beings dividing between them the sway 
of the universe, but waging deadly warfare for the possession of 
the whole ; a belief very natural to a mind freed by the indolence 
of an Eastern life for unstinted indulgence of its activity, undis- 
turbed by the necessity of toiling for the means of subsistence ; 



58 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

but, by consequence of this very leisure and of an enervating cli- 
mate, indisposed and unfitted for the disagreeable and arduous 
task of restraining the imagination and calling into play the less 
active, but nobler, powers of the understanding. Reposing be- 
neath the luxuriant foliage of his native land, the meditative 
Oriental watched the gradual unfurling of those cautionary signals 
by which nature gives warning of the approaching storm, and 
wondered why black clouds were permitted to blot out the fair 
beauty of the radiant heavens, fierce winds to carry dismay and 
havoc in their train, needless torrents of rain to inundate the 
blooming fields, to sweep away the labor of the husbandman and 
the artisan, and to furrow the face of the earth with many an ugly 
seam. Drifting upon the current of thought, he further asked 
himself why destruction seems to be the condition of all animate 
existence, every species only resisting the exterminating wrath 
of others by an incessant struggle, in which it inflicts in its 
turn misery and death upon its neighbors ; why man's frame is so 
often racked by pain and enfeebled by disease, and his happiness 
blighted by grief, di appointment, and malicious opposition ; and 
why the serene face of the spirit within man, bright and pure as 
it smiles from the nursing arms upon a troubled world, so often 
changes into the hideous visage of an unclean demon before it 
returns whence it came. To all this, the true answer is found, 
not by him who dreams away existence by the bank of flowing 
stream or in the learned seclusion of the study, but by him who, 
manfully grasping his weapon, goes forth to bear his part in the 
strife, and, as muscles harden, nerves grow firm, eye becomes 
quicker to detect, and heart dilates with that joy of conflict 
which quenches all sense of weariness, discomfort, and fear, learns 
the incomparable sweetness of that fruit which none can relish 
save the true soldier of the cross. To the lassitude of inaction all 
exertion is misery : to those infected with it, the thought that 
suffering, and sin, and all the manifold forms of Evil are, or at 
least may be, missionaries of God is repugnant, impossible, and 
so they are driven to the invention of a coexistent Principle of 
Evil, an Ahriman to offset their Ormuzd. To them the material 
world becomes a prison-house, in which are enchained particles 
of Light rifled from its sister-kingdom by the empire of Darkness, 
and forevermore struggling to be free and reascend ; and the one 
great aim of life, to assist in this escape by subduing the flesh 



MANICH^ISM. 59 

through abstinence and mortification. Furthermore, a fatalism 
will soon be developed which views man rather as the plaything 
of circumstances, the tool of destiny, or the puppet of superior 
forces, than as that noblest of created beings, an individual whose 
own hand writes his history. Wherever the influence of Dualism 
has been felt, there may be discovered more or less tendency 
towards these errors. 

The obvious result of those kindred religions, Gnosticism and 
Manichssism, wherever they have introduced any of their leaven 
into Christianity, is to remove God from the authorship and con- 
trol of this world ; whereupon it becomes His servants' duty to 
withdraw themselves as much as possible from intercourse with 
it. Here, at once, is discovered the germ of IVIonasticism, for if 
the world is not God's world, let us escape its temptations by 
flight, and spend our lives in crushing the stubborn flesh. Such 
was the shallow reasoning of the desert saint, who, abandoning 
the post at which he had been stationed by Providence, leaving 
his brethren to bear the brunt of the conflict, and selfishly turning 
his back upon millions ready to perish, devoted his life, not to the 
task of elevating his whole nature, but to the impossible one of 
destroying one part of his three-fold organism. Monkery was 
essentially Manichfean, having for its root-idea that the ground 
and the vegetable world, and all kinds of flesh, and all things 
visible and tangible were created by the Devil, or else (which 
practically comes to the same thing) have been so thoroughly 
vitiated and depraved by the fiend that he has now the full 
ownership and control ceded to him. Woe, then, to priest or 
bishop who, piously, and devotedly, and obediently laboring to 
save souls, fights in the thick of the melee. Fool that he is ! let 
him leave these millions to the claws of eternal perdition, and 
magnanimously shut himself securely within a cell surrounded by 
leagues of trackless wilderness ! The gatherings of the mighty 
throng for the purposes of praising God in full chorus, and of 
unitedly petitioning Him to grant the common requirements, — 
these have no place in a system which must regard all external 
worship as useless, if not positively hurtful ; though it does leave 
its deluded disciples to the bondage of lip and knee service in the 
privacy of the hermitage. Strange inconsistency! As for the 
Sacraments, they are not only liable to the same objection on the 
score of externality, but actually involve the use of water and the 



60 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

pampering of the body with the carnal elements of bread and 
wine. Alas, that Manichseism in all its harmfulness should still 
be rife among Christians ! It is centuries now since monkery 
quailed before the wrath of an increasing enlightenment, but these 
many years have not uprooted the principle upon which it rested. 
In one age the idea peoples deserts and forests with communities 
of solitaries, and in another wraps its votaries in a Pharisaical 
garb which requires no Nitrian wilds to protect them from the 
world, through which they stalk like the Ghost of Hamlet's father 
while they frown with equal sternness upon the vices of the prof- 
ligate and the innocent amusements of youth. The Puritanism 
which, blotting God's sun from the skies, recognizes no sanctity 
but in the unbending austerity of the misanthrope, does it not 
teach that this world is a land of dreary exile, in which we must 
not eat, drink, or sleep for fear of being poisoned? In still 
another age, the same idea, taking advantage of a state of society 
truly lamentable, instead of insisting that distilleries and saloons 
shall not sell a vile compound under the name of spirituous 
liquor, instead of attempting to instill into the popular mind the 
imprudence of running at a continual high pressure, and the ad- 
visability of practicing an universal moderation ; instead of thus 
inaugurating a reform based upon sound principles, commits the 
marvelous blunder of confounding temperance with total absti- 
nence, and calls upon all mankind to abandon the production of 
the grape, and confine itself to the natural beverage, which may 
be delightful enough quaffed from the bubbling spring, but is 
most unpalatable and noxious, as it must often be drunk, if drunk 
at all. In all these manifestations, it is not difficult to recognize 
the ever-recurring notion that Matter is Evil, not to the man who 
wrongly uses it, or who does not submit himself to the control 
of the divine "Will, but essentially, and to all. 

Contemporaneous with the Bulgarians, Bogomiles, Cathari, 
Albigenses, and other Paulician sects were the " Brethren of the 
Free Spirit," who, under various designations, flourished through- 
out Europe in the thirteenth and the following centuries, and 
whether lineally connected with the ManichoBans or not, held a 
central doctrine which was the natural outcome of their teachings. 
Although the creed of these Brethren of the Free Spirit does not 
primarily concern itself with maceration of the flesh, it is never- 
theless born of the same supreme contempt for the visible. 



MANICELEISM. 61 

Haughtily spurning the idea that God verbally communicates 
with man, it unblushingly demands, for all purposes and in all 
cases, nothing less than a direct intercourse, for the initiated at 
least, of the human spirit with the divine. When it did con- 
descend to admit the advantage the recorded revelation contained 
in the Bible might be to the unenlightened, it insisted as strenu- 
ously as ever that those who had once received within them the 
light of the divine illumination, needed nothing to guide them but 
this same invisible brightness. In thus throwing down the bar- 
riers which the same God who created the spirit, soul, and body 
of man, has erected to protect him against the misguiding influ- 
ences of ignorance, willfulness, impulse, and fanaticism, they 
surely did not realize that they had cast away some of the most 
important restraints from vice ; but the rest of the world soon 
sadly beheld these piwists (for such they were at first) change into 
utter libertines. Though the " Brethren of the Free Spirit " have 
long since become extinct, many a Christian person at this very 
day entertains the cardinal error of their school, who is as far from 
intending to countenance licentiousness in belief or practice as he 
well could be. The fashionable neglect of ordinances, subordina- 
tion of Church authority to private judgment, and disregard of 
ecclesiastical censure what are these but different manifestations 
of the same contempt for matter as being the creation of a hostile 
power ? 

As that anti-philosophic sect which was named after Montanus 
succeeded in drawing down to itself no less a star than the elo- 
quent and fiery Tertullian, so Manichaeism boasts the adhesion of 
the most celebrated of the Latin Fathers. Augustine, however, 
threw himself at length into the arms of the Church, and remained 
till death one of its most distinguished ornaments. In defending 
the Faith from the assaults of Pelagius, St. Augustine wrote 
treatises which in after ages were much quoted by defenders of 
that logical system of Christian philosophy known as Calvinism. 
In this connection it is certainly a little remarkable that the illus- 
trious bishop of Hippo was a convert from a sect tinctured with 
fatalism, from a speculative doctrine which, was an elaborate 
attempt to account for the origin of evil. This scheme had deter- 
mined that good and evil issued originally from opposite sources 
and were incurably hostile to each other, the evil being ineradica- 
bly evil and in no degree susceptible of improvement or change. 



62 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

How easy was the passage from this to the doctrine that some 
souls were created for salvation, and others with a tendency 
towards an irretrievably downward course; a doctrine which, if 
not distinctly held by the Saint, yet was at least not wholly dis- 
countenanced by him ! 

And, on the other hand, how easy a transit is afforded us to 
the Pantheistic belief of the Universalist ! If all souls did really 
come from the realm of Light, and are only wicked so far as they 
have been forcibly overcome by the temporarily triumphant might 
of Ahriman, how natural to suppose that the final victory of 
Ormuzd will forever liberate all the captive atoms and restore 
them to the Being from whom they emanated, and in whom they 
are then to be once more absorbed ! It is not to be disputed that 
the doctrines of Predestination and Universal Salvation are in 
some respects diametrically opposed ; still they meet in the com- 
mon attempt to wrest man's destiny out of his own hands and 
make him a cockle-shell driven by the wind, and may very well 
therefore have had a common ancestry. 

Whether a similar pedigree can be found for the wide-spread 
disbelief in the Old Testament, which now infects the learned 
world, it may seem presumptuous to decide ; and yet to what 
other quarter are we at once led when we proceed to ask who 
first taught that the Jehovah of the Jews was a different person 
from the " Father " of Jesus Christ, to thwart whom the Latter 
sent His Son into the world, with a commission to undeceive 
those who had been blinded by the Demiurge or Creator, and 
point out to them the true way of salvation ? If Cerinthus was 
the first, he was not the only one of these numerous sectaries, to 
advance a theory so blasphemous, in its clear enunciation, that one 
may well shun all that is likely to leave him in the companion- 
ship of those who hold it, and resolve to cling reverently to the 
Old Testament as indispensable to the proof and clear under- 
standing of the New. 



CHAPTEK VI. 

THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 

While far towards the rising sun Manes was concocting his 
diabolical creed, and nearer the centre of the civilized world 
Cerinthus and Montanus were amusing themselves by drawing 
caricatures of Christianity, that religion was making steady and 
rapid progress, growing as the seed sown in the earth grows, 
unnoticed, unheeded. The time was approaching which should 
witness the bursting forth from the yielding soil of that tender 
germ, and its vigorous up-shooting till mankind should stand 
admiringly beneath its shade. Proclaiming the glad-tidings 
wherever Jewish synagogue afforded them an audience and an 
opportunity, or congregation of idle sophists or of the gaping 
populace could be gathered, daring and enduring everything, 
carried forward by a zeal which counted it all joy to suffer as the 
Lord had suffered, directed by divine guidance, and upheld by 
supernatural comfort, the heralds of Christ crossed mountains, 
forded rivers, traced their tedious way over the yielding sands, 
pierced jungles, swamps, fens, and forests, found entrance into 
city, and town, and village, and hamlet, and lonely hut, preached 
in jail, prison, or the stocks, and prospered everywhere. Depths 
of mystery too profound for Athenian philosophers were readily 
sounded by the simple faith of illiterate countrymen ; the certain 
hope of a happy life in another world charmed the fancy of many 
a weary pilgrim, laden with sin ; and the heroism of taking up 
and bearing one's cross drew from luxury and pomp many who 
had courage to follow the course their judgment approved. 
Seizing upon the great cities of each province, establishing them- 
selves therein, and teaching and admonishing daily those who 
flocked around them, the Apostles and their successors created 
centres of influence from which the entire district could easily be 
operated upon. By these means Tertullian in the second century 



64 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

could utter his celebrated boast, which, if somewhat tinctured with 
rhetorical exaggeration, cannot be supposed to have been made 
without some color of truth, considering to whom the Apology 
was addressed. Gibbon calls similar language of Justin Martyr 
" splendid exaggeration," and yet himself shows that it was correct 
as it would have been understood by those for whom it was meant. 
Winning its way at first among the fishermen and publicans of 
Galilee, the new religion soon borrowed two of its brightest orna- 
ments from the Sanhedrim itself, and then enchained the magnifi- 
cent genius of Gamaliel's greatest pupil. Finding still most ready 
acceptance among the meek and lowly of the earth, it neverthe- 
less lacked not adherents among the rich, learned, noble, and 
powerful : the palace itself was invaded, and the throne ceased to 
frown upon those who refused to offer incense at the established 
altars. Alexander Severus, influenced probably by his mother 
Mamaea, was decidedly partial to them, and Philip went, perhaps, 
beyond his predecessor in favoring them. With the fourth cen- 
tury dawned a new era for the persecuted Church. ~No longer 
would she be compelled to hide in catacombs and thickets and 
upper rooms, no longer must she walk abroad with bated breath 
dreading a dangerous foe in every stranger, no more need she 
stoop to the humble language of apology, deprecation, and 
entreaty. Her dark days have passed. She has asserted her 
right to recognition. She has won from Caesar his subjects and 
his soldiers, and left the Pontifex Maximus to lament over 
deserted rites and forsaken shrines. She has already laid a strong 
hand upon the throne of Jupiter, and shaken it till Olympus, and 
Greece, and Italy tremble as with the shock of an earthquake. 
The question now is, Shall Kome come down from her exalted 
seat, or shall she acknowledge the Nazarene f He who possesses 
the confidence of the Christians, he among the numerous con- 
testants for supreme control of the vast empire who shall carry 
with him the hearty support of Christian voices and Christian 
pikes, that competitor will snatch the purple. So thought the 
far-sighted Constantine when the battle of the Milvian bridge had 
destroyed a formidable antagonist, admitted him victorious into 
the imperial city, and heaped fresh fuel upon the ambition which 
had blazed forth amid the legions of Britain. Six months from 
that date the famous Edict of Milan proclaimed him the patron 
of Christianity, and made the year a. d. 313 illustrious as a turning 



THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 65 

point in ecclesiastical history. This was no more than a proclama- 
tion of toleration, giving Christianity no greater rights than 
Paganism enjoyed : this it was in form, but in reality it fell but 
little short of constituting the former the legal religion of the 
empire, and pledging the secular arm to the support of that faith 
which the ruler professed. Certainly the sharp edge of imperial 
displeasure soon descended upon those who disturbed the peace 
of the Church by teaching what was adjudged to be heresy ; a 
measure which was wholly unjustifiable according to modern 
conceptions of governmental duty. Also, in the very next reign, 
the son of the first Christian emperor is said to have gone the 
length of enacting against the heathen the very penal laws which 
had weighed so heavily in former times upon their antagonists ; 
and even if the truth of this report be more than questionable, it 
is at least sure that he did all in his power to favor the latter, and 
render adhesion to the ancient system unpleasant at best, if not 
positively injurious and unsafe. 

What brush shall paint the exuberant joy of the Christians 
when the conversion of the world's monarch at last ended the 
protracted period of their bondage with such a triumph ; or give 
appropriate coloring to the golden sky of promise which then 
replaced the ashy clouds that had so long hung fixedly above 
them, only parting now and again to make way for the red bolt 
of persecution ! If the gallant bark had ridden so staunchly 
through all the storm, making the while such excellent headway 
against the raging blasts and furious sea, what could she not 
accomplish with the trade-wind of public support bending her 
squared yards and her lofty prow chasing the blue waves as they 
dance before her % Henceforth the timid need not refrain from 
openly confessing their Saviour, nor the weak be withheld by 
mercenary considerations. Missionary enterprise may now be 
carried on with tenfold success, hampered by no deficiency of 
money, for Rome's favorite can never want for silver. Temples 
will now arise in every city, attracting multitudes by the beauty 
of their architecture and the grandeur of their worship. Heresy, 
schism, skepticism, and ungodliness will faint and fall before the 
majestic countenance of the triumphant Church. Such must have 
been the visions which, like lovely flowers, sprang up everywhere 
behind the rumor of this wonderful change in the imperial policy ; 
and who cannot sympathize with those who plucked them? Were 



GQ THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

not all nations to become the kingdoms of the Lord and of His 
Christ? Were not kings to become nursing fathers of the 
Church, and queens her nursing mothers? If the Church was 
God's Church indeed, why should not the powers of the earth 
take it under their protection and do what they could to promote 
its interests ? If all the people of a nation owe allegiance to the 
Christian's God, why should they not pay this debt civilly as well 
as religiously ; or, under the other theory, if the supreme ruler is 
God's representative, why should he not administer public affairs 
with chief regard to the welfare of God's children ? Thus Script- 
ure and reason appeared to conspire in pointing out this as the 
most auspicious event that had occurred since the Church's 
infancy. Men crowded upon the deck and, as they watched the 
foam glide rapidly past, and lifted an occasional glance to the 
clouds of white canvas, unconsciously strained their eyes to catch 
a glimpse of the port towards which the good ship was bounding. 
Alas ! All too soon the clouds gathered, and the sea rose so 
that the vessel labored even more heavily than before. That pride 
of canvas was swiftly diminished by the reefer's hand, or torn into 
shreds and borne away on the gale. Men forgot to look for the 
harbor light. Wherein the expectations so sadly blighted were 
wrong may be hard to ascertain theoretically, and yet this point 
of abstract justice deserves to be considered, Can any nation make 
laws favoring any particular religion without trespassing upon the 
liberties of its subjects ? It is indisputably an inalienable right of 
man to choose his own faith. If this faith obliges him to offend 
against his neighbor, of course to that extent its exercise must be 
restrained by any well-ordered government ; but otherwise he has 
an unlimited right to believe any inconsistency, folly, or blas- 
phemy he sees fit to adopt, and no brother man can call him to 
account for so doing. Nor is it apparent why a collection of men 
has any better right to do this than a single individual would 
have. It is a poor rule which will not work both ways. If 
because a large majority of the population is Christian it has a 
right to put obstacles in the way of enjoying another religion, 
then when that other religion gains the supremacy it has the same 
right to place restraint upon Christianity. Julian or Constantius 
was as much justified in striving to put the Catholics down, as 
Constantine or Theodosius, in endeavoring to suppress paganism. 
If Christianity ought to burn a mosque simply because it is a 



THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 67 

mosque, then Mohammedanism should lire every church it can 
reach. We Christians complain bitterly when our mode of wor- 
ship is forbidden, crying out that we ought to be protected in 
worshiping God according to the dictates of our own consciences. 
What excuse then can we give for our unfairness in telling the 
Chinese immigrant that he must pack away his Josh and send the 
hideous thing back to his own land ? Christianity, we are told in 
reply, is true, and all other religions false. True, but are we 
Mussulmans to convert unbelievers with the sword, or Inquisitors 
to burn their bodies for the good of their souls ? But cannot a 
religion be established, that is, be the authorized religion of the 
State, without going these lengths in oppressing others ? In 
theory, of course, it can. It may be only so far the public 
religion, that its forms are observed in public ceremonies, its 
property exempted from bearing public burdens, its officers guar- 
anteed the unmolested execution of their functions, and its 
adherents distinguished by peculiar privileges ; while every other 
is free to exist and propagate itself as best it can. In much the 
same way a particular medical school might be countenanced by 
the government, and exclusively employed by it, and yet another 
perhaps have no cause to protest against a partiality which left 
it free to sustain itself if it could. The difficulty in all such 
cases is that, human nature being what it is, a predominant 
party will always take advantage of its good fortune to domineer 
over its rivals. 

A philosophic mind might have foreseen certain inevitable 
results of a coalition between Church and State. History bears 
witness that one of the earliest consequences was an interference 
of the civil power in the doctrinal disputes of the ecclesiastical ; 
an interposition which seemed, perhaps, rather beneficial than 
otherwise, while it ranged itself on the side of the Catholics and 
confined itself mainly to restraining undue ardor in discussion ; 
but became decidedly the reverse of agreeable as soon as the 
monarch's theology ceased to conform to that of the received 
doctors, and impelled him to uphold the Arians and drive into 
repeated exile the mighty champion of orthodoxy. What could 
be more certainly, more thoroughly, and more rapidly fatal to the 
true faith than to have its doctrines settled for it by the fiat of a 
despot, or in any way to hang upon the breath of civil authority ? 
Yet who could have been so simple, what unlettered peasant could 



68 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

have entertained such implicit confidence in the single-mindedness 
of rulers, as to suppose for an instant that Imperial Protection and 
Patronage would not involve Imperial oversight and Imperial 
meddling in what did not belong to its province. Another 
result would be that worldly aggrandizement would soon encroach 
upon the primitive lowliness of the ministry, defacing sadly the 
pure countenance of God's ambassador. f A prelate of more than 
ordinary ability, of fervid eloquence, of great administrative power, 
and of winning address, swaying with absolute control the popu- 
lace of a great city or of a whole province, and with almost 
unlimited wealth at his disposal derived from the spontaneous 
offerings of the people, was in a position to bid defiance to the 
government, or else to be its valuable auxiliary. An emperor 
who sat insecurely upon the throne, which he had obtained by 
open force, or secret assassination, or liberal use of money, or 
audacious effrontery, as so many an emperor did, would be ready 
to court, flatter, and reward the bishop, archbishop, or patriarch 
who would forge for him the thunderbolts of ecclesiastical protec- 
tion. And what bishop would be so regardless of the opportu- 
nities thus afforded him as not to improve them to the utmost, 
for the benefit of the great cause, if not for his own individual 
advantage? Then, too, the legitimate sphere of the priesthood 
would furnish many facilities for wresting from a conscience- 
stricken prince, anxious, perhaps, that his misdeeds should not be 
made known to discontented subjects, or fearful that the balance 
of the great Account might not be in his favor, gifts of money, 
lands, titles, and prerogatives. And who could say that the 
spiritual adviser, who counseled the royal penitent to be liberal 
towards the Church, had abused the sanctity of the confessional or 
the solemnity of the death-bed? In the case of an unestablished 
Church, or of any functionary thereof, that should creep into the 
good graces of a monarch, favor of course could be shown and 
almost unlimited privileges granted, but these could hardly 
become matters of hereditary right unless conferred by enactment ; 
by the passage of which the condition of not being established 
would immediately cease. 

The evils that arose with the growth of episcopal importance 
and power were two, conspicuous upon almost every page of his- 
tory from Theodosius down to our own time. In the first 
place, the character of those who ruled the Church was directly 



THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 69 

and gravely lowered. Human nature is very much the same 
within the Church and outside of it ; nor is elevation to exalted 
station therein any certain guarantee that the person so raised is 
impervious to ordinary mundane influences. Men who enter holy 
orders thoroughly self-devoted to the exclusive work of their high 
calling, and with no thought but to promote the glory of God and 
advance the salvation of their fellow-men, sometimes permit other 
motives to find permanent lodging within and then to expel little 
by little the rightful tenants of the domicile. Is it not too much 
to expect that a bishop should direct the ordinary affairs of a 
province, and expend as much pains upon the spiritual oversight 
of his flock as another whose time is not thus taken up and his 
attention distracted by the comparatively insignificant anxieties of 
secular management ; or that one shut off from contact with the 
rough world, and gradually accustomed, during fifty years, per- 
chance, to the adulation, luxury, and pomp of a princely station, 
should retain the humble-mindedness, unworldliness, and self- 
sacrificing spirit that may have conspicuously marked his earlier 
days? And besides that these sources of deterioration would 
affect the occupants themselves, it is to be noticed that serious 
evils would result from these high stations being sought by 
aspirants who had nothing to recommend them except intellectual 
ability and unscrupulous ambition ; candidates who cared not so 
much for the sheep as for the fleeces, not so much for the temple 
as for the palace ; men so bad at the outset that circumstances had 
little to do but give scope for the viciousness to display itself, who 
certainly would have felt little inducement to intrude themselves 
upon a Church whose poverty was mitigated only by hopes for the 
hereafter. 

In the second place, as soon as the Bishop has been established 
as a high officer of the State, the Church is no longer likely to 
enjoy undisturbed freedom of electing to the vacant seat such as 
she judges meekest and holiest, as well as ablest and boldest, and 
so fittest to rule in the kingdom of God ; but the king or em- 
peror, dreading the independence of some sturdy churchman, or 
desiring to reward some favorite of his own, will insist that he 
himself shall have an equal, if not a paramount, voice in the ap- 
pointment. Also, the ecclesiastical authority will not be allowed 
to displace such appointees when it has decided that they are 
neglecting or abusing their powers, but will be obliged to sus- 



70 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

pend indefinitely righteous sentence against heretical, worldly, 
and impious dignitaries, because they happen to be useful to the 
civil ruler. The Church could not tamely submit to such dicta- 
tion, and see all important stations within her proper gift be- 
stowed and retained at the will of a power more or less opposed 
to her interest ; nor, on the other hand, was it to be expected that 
a Charlemagne or a Charles the Fifth would complacently be- 
hold the territories, fortresses, troops, supplies, and revenues of 
vast sections pass into the hands of one estranged from the policy 
of the empire through birth, education, and the tenure by which 
he held. Hence would and did arise long and bitter strife, from 
which neither party could recede without endangering its very 
existence. The famous Investiture Controversy kept the Empire 
and the Papacy at swords' points for centuries, though nominally 
it lasted only from 1059 to 1122 a. d. Said the House of Fran- 
conia or the House of Hohenstaufen : We cannot suffer this 
foreign potentate, this haughty, avaricious, ambitious Pope, seated 
in security on the other side of the Alps, to set up and pull down 
at his pleasure the first princes of the realm and others who, if 
inferior to the Prince Archbishop of Cologne, are nevertheless 
temporal Lords of no mean importance. Else farewell to our 
independence as a nation, and to all hopes of consolidation, prog- 
ress, and renown ! Far better would it be that we should send an 
humble delegation to the Sovereign Pontiff, and entreat him to 
take in his own grasp the sword we are too feeble to wield, and 
relieve us from all further trouble and anxiety in the management 
of our concerns, the preservation of domestic peace and the pro- 
tection of our borders from inroads and invasions. Said Hilde- 
brancl and those who inherited the prestige with which he had 
surrounded the tiara, and especially, we may suppose, those of 
them who successively encircled the original round hat with the 
three crowns it presently boasted, Nicholas L, Boniface VIIL, 
and Urban Y. : Shall the Lord's Anointed derive his title from 
Caesar ? Shall priest, bishop, and Pope dance attendance in the 
very exercise of their holiest functions upon one who, if not ac- 
tually an ungodly person or an unbeliever, is certainly not fit to 
rule those who are commissioned over the Lord's heritage, in the 
affairs of that heritage ? Shall they to whom all power in earth and 
heaven has been given by Him to whom it belongs ; shall they 
who have been intrusted with authority to bind and loose on earth 



THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 71 

with assurance that their acts shall be ratified in heaven ; shall 
he whose right hand holds the keys of heaven and hell, be des- 
ignated, installed, deposed by an earthly potentate, the worth- 
less offspring of a degenerate race, the ruthless victor of a dozen 
bloody fields, or the crafty master of the trickster's art ? Out of 
such a dispute what way was open % One in whose bosom 
smouldered a single ember of patriotism could not yield his coun- 
try over to the intriguing of a foreign potentate : one in whose 
breast lingered the faintest spark of churchmanship would extend 
himself on St. Valentine's hard couch, rather than consent that 
those, who have for their function to minister with clean hands at 
God's altar, should be the satraps of a despot. When patriotism 
and churchmanship, when duty to one's country and duty to one's 
Church, come into conflict, what man, who feels himself to be but 
a pilgrim on this earth, dare forfeit his title to citizenship in the 
other country by enrolling himself under a hostile banner ? Against 
all usurpations of the Empire, Hildebrand stood firm as a rock 
and valiant as a lion, through several changes of government and 
various pontificates, seemingly possessed with the grand idea that 
he had been marked by destiny as the deliverer of the Church from 
the unhallowed embrace of Civil Authority. Through many 
years the fierce strife raged, Henry IV. now ignominiously sub- 
mitting at Canossa, but soon thereafter triumphing over his an- 
tagonist, who became a prisoner in the besieged fortress of St. 
Angelo until rescued and carried to Salerno by that redoubtable 
Norman, Robert Guiscard. His death, however, left the Papacy 
in the ascendant and advancing steadily towards the culmination 
it gained under Innocent III. It is true that a compromise was 
made a few decades later, but what substance could there be in such 
a compromise? It was solemnly agreed between Henry Y. and 
Calixtus II. that thenceforward the ring and crosier should be 
conferred upon bishops and abbots by the Church, and a sceptre 
be given them by the Empire, the former being regarded as sym- 
bols of ecclesiastical dominion, and the latter as betokening the 
civil domination confided to their hands ; and thus it was to be 
represented that they held under both powers, from both sources, 
an authority to be employed for the benefit of both. We can- 
not say that the Concordat entered into at the Diet of Worms 
was wholly impotent ; though it is not easy to see that it ac- 
complished much more than a transference of the contest from 



72 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

the battle-ground to the cabinet, for, while the name Investitures 
may from that date occur less frequently upon the historic 
page, the struggle for universal and exclusive dominion be- 
tween the two parties goes on with unabated virulence until the 
blue-eyed race of the North appeared upon the fields of Leipsic 
and Lutzen. 

Thus by the light of history do we perceive how great was the 
error of Christianity when it mistook the evanescent flashings of 
an Aurora Borealis for the early hues of dawn. Did she expect 
that the lion would extend his claws to be clipped % That which 
constitutes the inherent vice of a Democracy is precisely what 
makes a union of Church and State unadvisable ; men are not 
what they should be, what they must be before they can be trusted 
with such freedom as seems commensurate with their noble intel- 
lectual faculties, what they never can be this side of the grave 
unless a millennium is really to precede the final catastrophe. As 
long as the world is what we sadly know it to be, nominally 
Christian, but actually unconverted, we cannot expect much of 
good to come from a close alliance between it and the maiden 
who is destined to be the bride of Christ, Another sad mistake 
she made, if she thought to increase her influence and importance 
by summoning swords and spears to her assistance. How much 
grander was the triumph of Ambrose, in a day when the Church 
had hardly begun to feel that she was established, than that of 
Hildebrand six centuries later ! Both of these men succeeded in 
forcing into the position of penitents the most powerful sovereign 
of their times : in both cases the submission finally extorted was 
practically absolute. He of Milan employed no w T eapons but those 
of rebuke and loving entreaty, while the equally-devoted prelate 
of Rome enlisted troops and encouraged an usurper. Behold 
the results! Ambrose's victory w T as complete, tightening about 
Theodosius the bands of a willing subjection to the law of 
love, and adding to the esteem with which the emperor had 
previously regarded the fearless bishop ; but Gregory's incensed 
and exasperated his royal penitent, who soon appeared in arms 
against the man who had humiliated him to the extent of com- 
pelling him to stand several days bare-footed and bare-headed 
in the snow, and led on to the inevitable reaction which lifted 
high its crest when William de Nogaret smote the shaven head 
of Boniface, humbling the Papacy as perhaps it never has been 



THE CHURCH AS AN ESTABLISHMENT. 73 

humbled before and since that audacious deed of Philip's emis- 
sary. Truly, the kingdom of Christ is not of this world ; and 
in proportion as His servants place their reliance upon other 
than spiritual powers, in that degree will they feel slipping 
from their fingers that power which He has given them, the 
sceptre of which is love. 



CHAPTEK YIL 

THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 

Scarcely has the sun of Imperial favor begun to shine upon 
the jubilant Church when insidious foes threaten her very exist- 
ence as it never has been menaced before ; but previously to study- 
ing the nature of these various heresies that rose against her, it 
will be best to pause and examine carefully the shield which 
received and turned aside the deadly weapons of the assailants. 
This seems the proper place to discuss the subject of General 
Councils. 

The Saviour of mankind is universally acknowledged to have 
been, what He distinctly and repeatedly claimed that He was, a 
teacher. His mission was to give men a fuller, profounder, and 
more perfect knowledge of God, of themselves, and of their rela- 
tions to God. His was no stammering tongue, but one which 
uttered with accuracy and emphasis the message entrusted to 
Him. Lawgivers, priests, prophets, and kings had already pro- 
claimed such fragments of diviue truth as they had been able to 
grasp ; but the God-man Christ Jesus, himself the Truth, spake 
as never man had spoken before. The method of His revelation 
was one that conformed itself to the immediate demands of the 
occasion. As Christ perceived that the hearts He so easily read 
needed a particular lesson or were ready to assimilate it, He gave 
that lesson in plain, straightforward language, careless of the logi- 
cal arrangement of the schools. We can hardly imagine Him act- 
ing otherwise. The Christian mind refuses to picture the Master 
discoursing, after the fashion of the philosophers, with regularly 
arranged heads, and divisions and subdivisions, and in the tech- 
nical phraseology of later times. Why ? Because there was no 
vast, comprehensive, exact system of theology into which every 
single precept might have been fitted ? Certainly that cannot be 
the reason, for the Almighty mind comprehends, we may safely 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 75 

say, not only all divinity, but all truth and fact of all kinds what- 
soever, in one all-embracing unity of plan. Nor will the devout 
believer be easily brought to allow that there did not exist the 
very perfection of method in our Lord's order of producing out of 
the inexhaustible treasury of His knowledge those injunctions and 
principles which He intended to leave behind Him. The objec- 
tion lies not against the existence of method and system, but 
against the pedantry of exhibiting them. So perfect was the 
arrangement that none but the eye of Him who made is compe- 
tent thoroughly to trace it out. 

"What was possible to the Master was far above the scope of 
the disciples' minds. They had not, it is true, learned their own 
lesson by rote ; but they must, in a measure at least, teach it to 
others in that way or run a great risk of leading their pupils off 
the right track. Man must systematize his knowledge before he 
can impart it to others, and indeed in order to reflect upon it 
himself with a view to its preservation and enlargement. What 
would be thought of the scholar who should soberly argue that 
it is superfluous, injurious, pedantic, narrow, to systematize our 
knowledge of the heavenly bodies, of the successive layers of pri- 
meval rock beneath our feet, of the ferns, mosses, shrubs, and 
trees of our forests, of the prominent events and mighty convul- 
sions that have marked the different eras of the world's life, of the 
varying phenomena of the ever-acting human mind? Would we 
believe the person sane who should insist that the cause of science 
would be best subserved by allowing what we know in these 
several branches to lie strewn about in promiscuous confusion? 
What is knowledge but the comparing of kindred facts, or the 
dissecting of one great fact into a number of small ones which we 
label and place in their appropriate pigeon-holes ? How do we 
acquire knowledge but by systematizing ? If religion is folly, if it 
is the dream of a bewildered fancy, then let us not disturb it with 
our logical processes ; but if it is wisdom, if it deserves the sober 
attention of an intelligent mind, let us hold it up to the light, 
examine it on all sides, apply to it every proper test. 

As soon as the infant Church possessed a mind capable, by 
reason of scholastic training, of forming a system of theology, that 
great work was begun. Saul of Tarsus, bringing to bear upon 
the new revelation the trained acuteness of a ripe intellect, imme- 
diately commenced to compare, and combine, and analyze, until 



76 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

he evolved the theology which guided his preaching throughout 
his entire ministry. If a definite and logically-exact system does 
not underlie the argument of the Epistle to the Romans, it may 
be boldly affirmed that no human intellect has ever yet shown 
itself equal to the sublime undertaking of evolving systems of 
anything; but that all which are dignified with that term are 
utter shams. 

As long as any opinion or belief is unquestioned it is very 
likely to remain vague and indefinite. If astronomer, geologist, 
or metaphysician advances some new theory, he may for a while 
neglect to examine its limitations with great minuteness, and con- 
tent himself with a general idea of its size and configuration (so to 
speak). Before long, however, some rival scientist or philosopher, 
or the common sense of the people, will begin to scrutinize, doubt, 
perhaps deny. Now, unless our theorist is able to describe and 
establish the metes and bounds of his theory, it will fare hard 
with him and his notions, so that he will soon wish that he had 
not been so rash in advocating an untenable hypothesis. What 
would the world think and say of the man who, finding himself 
in this predicament, should raise his hands in deprecation of such 
harsh treatment, and beg mankind to accept his theory with 
unquestioning faith? The world's sense of politeness would 
hardly restrain it from bursting out in a shout of derision. The 
world will not listen to any teaching that cannot support itself by 
plausible reasoning; and indeed it would not be able to act 
differently if it wished. Mankind at large may use a very imper- 
fect sort of logic, may take a great amount of its belief at second 
hand from those to whom it looks up as leaders, may not be very 
capable of pursuing an elaborate argument, may fall into numer- 
ous and gross errors ; but still it must at least imagine that right 
reasoning sanctions its conclusions and its conduct. Call this the 
thralldom of logic, if you will ; but reflect at the same time that 
the only way of emancipating us from this thralldom is to dethrone 
reason and make lunatics of us. 

Religion is not exempted from submission to the same law. 
So long as the whole Faith, or any particular thereof, was not 
examined too closely, it might, without great immediate danger, 
be held in a disjointed, misty fashion ; but the moment men began 
to apply to it the searching test of the microscope and the crucible, 
it became necessary to mould the doctrines into well-rounded 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. tf 

forms, and fit them all together into one compact whole. It would 
never have answered to warn people from meddling by setting up 
a huge sign, Hands off; for there was no power to compel obedi- 
ence to such a command, and the hands would have forthwith 
proceeded all the same to pluck, and tear, and pull in pieces. 
What good would have come from bidding Alius to refrain from 
sounding depths which it might, mayhap, have been more rever- 
ent and prudent not to try with the plummet? What would 
have been the result, either, had the Church resolutely remained 
silent in the great crisis and left the faith to shift for itself? Does 
it require great strength of sight to see that, if Athanasius had not 
wielded the weapon of logic with masterly skill, Arius would have 
won the day and foisted in his spurious tenets as the true and 
ancient faith of the Church ? 

Besides, even had no attack ever been made upon the old and 
simple faith, had for instance no deadly errors ever been dis- 
seminated concerning the wondrous Incarnation of our Blessed 
Lord, would there not still have existed most excellent reasons 
for casting the different teachings He had given His disciples into 
a systematic form? In the effort which every pious mind is 
bound to make for as thorough an understanding of all God has 
been pleased to reveal as it is capable of compassing, how shall it 
escape the inevitable tendency towards theorizing and systematiz- 
ing? The uneducated are not so entirely under this necessity 
as those are who have been trained into habits of consecutive 
thought. Coleridge discovers in this difference a most vital distinc- 
tion between the two classes of people, remarking that one of the 
chief advantages of education is that it both enables a man to 
foresee the end from the beginning, and to advance towards the 
achievement of his clearly defined purpose by a series of regular 
approaches, either through the clauses of a sentence or the sus- 
tained march of a labored discourse. If the scholar, improving 
the opportunities afforded by the silent watches of the night, and 
impelled not improbably by the heavy hand of the Lord upon 
him, undertakes the contemplation of any fact in the history of 
redemption, must he not of necessity view that fact in its bearings 
upon all cognate facts ? Say that the incident before him is the 
Baptism of Jesus, can he help asking himself what authority 
John had to baptize, what relation that baptism of repentance 
bore to the kindred rite of circumcision, why the Lord humiliated 



78 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Himself so far as to seek such a " carnal ordinance " at the hands 
of His forerunner ; what the dove was, whether the divine nature 
of the Son, the Holy Spirit, or a mere emblem ; what was the 
result of the rite with its accompanying incidents, whether the 
man Jesus then became divine, whether Pie was united then with 
the God Christ, or whether there ensued merely an influx of 
heavenly grace upon one who previously was incarnate God; 
what was the significance of the voice from heaven ; what was the 
mode of administering the rite ; did Jesus then become known to 
John as the Messiah? Some of these questions very likely would 
not readily suggest themselves to a devout mind ; but many of 
them unquestionably would occur to any inquiring intellect, and 
refuse to retire until they had received respectful attention ; which 
scrutiny and study would open many an avenue of investigation 
into other truths, facts, and principles. In the light of these con- 
siderations, the platform of opposition to systematic theology seems 
a very strange one to occupy. 

If any reader is not yet convinced of the importance, — of the 
absolute necessity, — of having defined doctrines, let him put him- 
self in the place of the teacher, and imagine himself trying to 
impart to heathen people, or to the children of the Church, a com- 
petent knowledge of Christianity, and forbidden all the time to 
employ that methodical arrangement without which no one is 
supposed to attempt the instruction of even pupils in the primary 
class. He is permitted to teach facts, but must not explain those 
facts; or if he does embark upon an occasional explanation, must 
not go outside of Scripture : he is permitted to teach that Christ 
died for the sins of the world, but may not, upon pain of con- 
demnation, remind his class that the Saviour was both God and 
man, — man that He might die, God that His death might be of 
infinite worth ; for this is to dogmatize. It is difficult to see how 
the public or private instruction of catechumens and communi- 
cants ever could have been conducted without something ap- 
proaching a systematizing of what was to be taught. 

The most violent opposition to dogmatic theology, at the present 
day, comes from the ranks of those who are sworn opponents of 
Christianity itself. It is too evident to need more than the bare 
statement that by leaving truth undefined you make way for the 
encroachments of error. While any given doctrine of the faith is 
left vague, it is easy for those who wish its overthrow to pretend 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 79 

that their perverse rendering of that doctrine is the true one; but 
as soon as a clear, well-rounded logical formula has been imposed 
upon the doctrine, the most illiterate can generally see that the 
fictitious teaching is not the true one. A very numerous class of 
persons, particularly among the devotees of science, men who, it is 
to be feared, have not taught themselves a proper deference for the 
manifested will of the Most High, is to be found willing enough 
to patronize Christianity provided they can remodel it to suit their 
own fancies. If they are only permitted to dethrone Jehovah and 
elevate into His seat an impersonal, unfeeling, indifferent, blind 
Cause ; to take away our Lord Christ and give us in His stead an 
amiable, effeminate, not overtruthful man ; to remove from our 
midst the Holy Spirit and plant in His room a sort of pythonic 
inspiration ; if they could only be courteously suffered to forget 
the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, the Ascension, 
and final Judgment ; if they might only laugh at the Church of 
God as an effete institution of the Dark Ages, and substitute for 
the sacraments of God's appointment such devices as may happen 
to please their ungodly pride ; these persons will gladly call them- 
selves by the name of Him who died to redeem them from the ter- 
rible and eternal penalties consequent upon their vicious and 
froward courses. Doubtless such persons are bitter enemies of 
definite teaching. Others, shocked by the spectacles which Chris- 
tians have often made of themselves in the quarrels and wars 
which have grown out of disputes about religion, and oblivious of 
the fact that everything worth possessing must often be the sub- 
ject of contention, and that contention is very liable to degenerate 
into unseemly strife, think that all this unpleasantness would be 
avoided by destroying dogma. These surely have not computed 
the cost. It is likely enough that the bickerings about matters of 
belief would be terminated by the application of such a remedy, 
but about in the same way that the cholera in a human patient 
would be destroyed by administering a strong dose of prussic acid. 
Others again, not endowed by nature with superabundance of 
mental energy and deficient perhaps in actual power of brain, per- 
plexed by the intricacy, multiplicity, and profundity of the prob- 
lems which entangle them whenever their feet tread the arduous 
paths of theological learning, heartily wish that these difficulties 
were all removed, and are apt to exclaim that they must have 
been put in the way by the Evil One. It might not be amiss to 



80 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

remind such objectors that divine Providence did not intend that 
men should win the crown of life, or indeed any other reward 
down to the laurel wreath, without shaking off indolence, and 
putting forth whatever strength, and employing whatever skill, 
may be at command. The largest class of all, possibly, inherits the 
prejudice against dogmas from those who have gone before, and 
only needs to be aroused to thought, in order to be convinced that 
these are a necessity to any religion that does not mean to be 
driven to the wall by the leagued forces of ungodliness, infidelity, 
and headstrong inquiry. 

When it has been thoroughly sifted, much of the opposition to 
doctrinal or dogmatic religion will be resolved into an animosity, 
not against doctrines and dogmas in themselves, but against the 
arbitrary and arrogant way in which they have sometimes been 
imposed upon the faithful. If an authority usurps prerogatives 
which do not belong to it, or exerts those which it does possess 
tyrannically, the natural consequence is that by so doing it preju- 
dices even a good cause. Where then resides the power of estab- 
lishing dogma? To exercise this authority properly will be 
required scarcely less knowledge, prudence, and skill than to 
reveal a new religion. To define the doctrine of the Incarnation, 
or to reconcile Faith and Works, fully, accurately, and authorita- 
tively, is a task to which the unaided human intellect is just as 
incompetent as to discover the doctrines themselves in the first 
instance; upon the principle that it is as impossible for an aero- 
naut to steer his balloon as far as our satellite, which is only a few 
thousand miles off, as to anchor it among the boulders which may 
be supposed to lay strewn upon the frozen surface of Neptune : he 
is utterly and absolutely unable to do either. This is equally true 
of the isolated divine and of the assembled conclave : all conclu- 
sions, opinions, beliefs, affirmations of the individual or of the mul- 
titude partake of human imperfection, consequently may be erro- 
neous, and therefore cannot bind any one's conscience. It cannot 
really alter this undeniable truth that the person or persons in 
question are unusually and indisputably honest, pious, humble, 
intelligent, learned, and judicious ; for at best, or worst, they are 
men, and no more than men, and as men are extremely liable to 
be mistaken. Of course, much deference would be due to the 
deliberate decisions of a large body of sober theologians. Still, 
every one would have a right to go behind the record and exam- 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. $1 

ine into the arguments and evidence for himself, and to differ to 
any extent from the conclusions reached, if his own mind led him 
to do so. Whatever weight might be attributed to the determina- 
tions of learned Christian scholars backed by the approbation of 
the masses, and however successful these might be in keeping the 
wheels of the Church in the right grooves, no blame would attach 
to the independent thinker who permitted himself to prefer his 
own deductions to theirs. 

The analogy of the divine economy would seem to demand 
something beyond the degrees of certainty and authoritativeness 
that could be attained in any such way. The original revelation 
was conveyed to us with such overwhelmingness of testimony that 
doubtfulness or even hesitation is put almost out of the question, 
except for such as are wholly uninformed as to the facts or will- 
fully blind against their admission ; furthermore, it goes abroad 
into the world with this sanction, Believe and ye shall be saved; 
disbelieve and ye shall be condemned. Having taken all con- 
ceivable pains to convince the world, through prophecy, miracle, 
and transcendent holiness of life, that He was indeed the Son of 
God and His message unalterable truth, and then having made the 
acceptance of His teachings obligatory npon all that should know 
of them, is it in accordance with the harmoniousness of plan 
always discernible in the dealings of God with us, that He should 
not have provided some method by which the doubts and dis- 
cussions which were sure to arise should be settled, with some 
degree of divine support to uphold the settlement? Without some 
such method of divine adjustment of controversies we cannot but 
think that the Christian Church would be less fortunate than the 
Jewish was with its Urim and Thummin, its Spirit of Prophecy, 
and all its various facilities for consulting the true oracle ; and 
that we of the present generation are in a far less happy condition 
than were those favored ones, who lived near enough the time of 
our Saviour to have some assurance, upon which they could rely, 
that He was indeed coeternal and consubstantial with His Father 
— something better than their own logical (or illogical) deductions 
upon most complicated points from texts of Scripture, which are 
at least so far contradictory that they present opposite sides of a 
mystery far above the reach of human comprehension. 

At the removal of the Master from earth, the function of guid- 
ing into all truth devolved upon that Holy Spirit, whom He dis- 



82 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

patched thitherward for that express purpose. No Trinitarian 
Christian of course can doubt for an instant the thorough com- 
petence of Christ's Yicar to explain, formulate, and defend the 
Revelation which, while given by Christ, was just as familiar to 
the mind of Him who searcheth the deep things of God. Indeed 
He could, had that comported with the divine scheme, have con- 
tinued the work of positive teaching, and unfolded to us many a 
secret which has wisely been left wrapped in darkness. That the 
Spirit has executed this office is denied by few who even pretend 
to be believers. That He, in some way and to some extent, acted 
upon the minds of those who composed the various books of the 
New Testament and of the original preachers of the Gospel, is 
universally admitted. That He continues to enlighten the 
searcher after truth, whether already committed to obedience or 
only groping after the door, is, if possible, still more generally 
allowed. But that the same Omnipotent Holy Ghost in any way 
acts upon the corporate body of the Church, is most unaccountably 
rejected by large numbers as a figment of a diseased brain. Why 
does this objection exist and find so much prevalence? Is it based 
upon a supposed impossibility of such corporate action ? Do the 
rejecters see no way in which the influence of divine grace can 
permeate a great corporation, and control its action at least in 
respect of restraint ? Is it impossible that the Spirit of God should 
vivify the w T hole Body of which Christ is the head, or that vivify- 
ing it He should find a way of manifesting Himself or of declaring 
His mind? No such impossibility exists, nor is the idea of its 
existence to be for one moment entertained. If Christ promised 
to send His Spirit to do this precise work, we may be sure that 
He accomplished His design, and our business is not to discuss 
practicabilities, but to search reverently for the true method of 
ascertaining the mind of Christ as revealed by the Spirit. 

We need' not quarry stone for a foundation already laid. In 
a former chapter we saw that the Spirit resides, not in the episco- 
pate, nor in the priesthood, nor in the ministry exclusively, but 
in the entire organization. Unless, then, some portion of the 
body has been explicitly shut off from participation in this great 
work of establishing and maintaining the faith, every member is 
entitled to share therein. Now, so far from any exclusion having 
been made, we have apostolic warrant for admitting the laity into 
the highest counsels of the Church. We cannot, perhaps, dem- 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 83 

onstrate that the " Brethren" took any part in the deliberations 
of the great council at Jerusalem which assembled in the mid- 
dle of the first century, nor even that the circular letter was 
issued in their names, since some manuscripts put the word 
" Brethren " in apposition with " The apostles and elders" but 
we can show that " The Church," as something distinct from 
" The apostles and elders," received Paul and Barnabas upon 
their arrival at Jerusalem ; that " The multitude kept silence and 
gave audience to Barnabas and Paul ; " and that it pleased " The 
apostles and elders with the whole Church to send chosen men 
* * * and wrote letters by them after this manner;" from 
all which it appears that the brethren in Jerusalem did have some 
share in the deliberations of that first council, not only being 
present to listen and lend dignity to the occasion, closed doors 
not then being the order of the day, but actually bearing some of 
the responsibility of its action. And yet that, of all assemblies, 
might be thought the one least likely to call in the assistance of 
the laity, enjoying, as it did, the presence of so many especially 
empowered to guide the infant Church and called by us inspired 
men. Inspired they were, and to doubt the correctness of a de- 
cision so deliberately reached by them, and so solemnly promul- 
gated, as having the sanction of the Holy Ghost, in the extraor- 
dinary words, " It seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us," 
would be to cut the ground entirely from under our feet as Chris- 
tians. Nevertheless, these Apostles did not see fit to rely exclu- 
sively upon their own knowledge and wisdom, but unquestionably 
admitted the presbyters or elders to cooperation. Perhaps they 
judged that thus their decision would carry more weight and meet 
with less opposition. Perhaps, in order that the council might be a 
model for future generations, the Blessed Spirit, until the opinions 
of the presbyters had been asked and obtained, withheld from the 
Apostles who were there, both individually and collectively, the 
kind of inspiration with which at other times He favored them. 
At all events they did pursue the course indicated above, and with 
equal certainty they extended the liberty of cooperation to many 
that were not in the ranks of the ministry at all, and therefore, 
actually or constructively, to the whole body of the Church at 
Jerusalem. E"ow, if the "brethren were consulted in the Holy 
City, upon what ground would " The brethren, which are of 
the Gentiles in Antioch, and Syria, and Cilicia," be excluded ? 



84 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Are the j thus shut out ? If so, is it not for a reason which never 
occurred again, namely, because of the presence of the Apostles 
in this one synod alone ? Then, since the principle of allowing 
laymen a share in legislation is admitted at this council, and fair- 
ness requires that all laymen should be consulted if any are, and 
the one reason for excluding any did not arise again, does it not 
follow that a circular letter, issued by any second council claiming 
to be oecumenical, should be consciously addressed to men who 
can reject as well as accept, who have been taught to prove all 
things with a view to holding fast that which is good ? And how 
stands it with the letter set forth by this very apostolic assembly ? 
Does it not lay the " Necessary burden " as upon shoulders that 
have the right to shake it off? That it goes forth in the name of 
the Holy Ghost may not involve a denial of the right of those to 
whom it comes to pronounce upon the correctness of that high 
claim. There is one hypothesis which explains all the facts in 
the case: whether any other does the same as satisfactorily, or 
more so, each must decide for himself. The two higher orders of 
the ministry debate the subject at length, the Apostles, as was fit- 
ting, taking the most prominent part ; and a decree is at last reached 
which is couched in mandatory language, not, however, because 
the decision is yet binding upon the Church, but in anticipation 
of the time when, by unanimous consent, it will become so. We 
have a parallel to this in the case of St. James, who closes his 
speech with the words, "Wherefore my sentence is," etc., not, 
we may presume, signifying by that expression that he meant to 
force his own opinion upon the whole assembly, but rather, as 
president of the council, summing up the remarks of those who 
had spoken in this one proposition, which he offers for adoption. 
After the same manner, the council itself sends forth a paper 
which is decided and authoritative in form, and yet is submitted 
to the judgment of the churches for their approval in order that 
it may become law. In opposition to this explanation, it may be 
held that the decree when passed by the synod was binding and 
final. Upon what theory, however, shall we rest such a solution 
of the question ? Not surely upon episcopal prerogative, for if 
the Apostles as bishops were sufficient in themselves, why were 
the elders consulted ? Shall we base it upon the general posses- 
sion of divine direction by the priesthood alone? What, then, 
becomes of deacons who, like St. Stephen, were full of grace and 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 85 

power, or, like St. Philip, were even subject to the corporal action 
of the Spirit ? What, moreover, becomes of St. Jude's declaration 
that the faith was once delivered into the custody of the " saints" f 
Furthermore, if the common people had such free scope in electing 
their bishops that they could seize upon an Italian lawyer and have 
him advanced immediately to the episcopal throne of Milan, the 
clergy were in some sense at least representatives of the laity ; and 
the same view of laic rights which conceded this elective franchise 
would also recognize the justice of a claim to a voice in pronounc- 
ing upon the doctrines which all were to believe under penalty of 
excommunication. It is time to close a superfluous and superog- 
atory work. We are carrying a burden of proof which properly 
belongs to the other side. When once it has been agreed that 
the Holy Spirit communicates His gifts alike, though in different 
measure, to Cornelius and to Peter, to the three thousand and to 
the Twelve, very clear evidence ought to be exacted before we 
consent to deprive any Christian, however lowly in station, of 
the prerogative of bearing witness to the truth as it is in Jesus ; and 
until that clear proof is forthcoming we need concern ourselves no 
more about the matter. 

What is to be sought in order to ascertain the truth in all 
matters of religious controversy, if our theory be correct, is the 
testimony of the entire Church, not omitting the humblest mem- 
ber of it ; and the problem therefore is how to obtain the desired 
witness, since it is impossible to convene all Christians in one 
great mass-meeting for the purpose of voting upon the question 
under discussion. The only resource then is to refer the matter, 
by circular letter or otherwise, to the various provinces and 
dioceses, to be adjudicated by them separately. The object in 
view will be secured in this way just as surely as though the grand 
conclave could be held, and with the avoidance of many embar- 
rassments that would attend upon such an unwieldy gathering. 

The initiative in such movements belongs of right to the 
officers of the kingdom. When God's Church meets in solemn 
assembly to deliberate upon points of doctrine, discipline, and 
worship, who will so naturally take the lead in the discussions as 
those who have given their whole lives, and consecrated all their 
powers, to the work of the ministry, and have been so distinguished 
by their learning, ability, administrative capacity, and piety as to 
have been thought worthy of obtaining the honor of the episco- 



86 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

pate \ It is not in the nature of things that ordinary laymen 
should be experts in theology. Occasionally the wonderful genius 
of some intellectual prodigy will constitute him king in all depart- 
ments of learning ; but in the vast majority of instances a suitor 
will do well to engage a lawyer, a diseased person to employ the 
skill of a medical man, and a sinner or a doubter to call in the 
assistance of a professed theologian. Divinity may be more or less 
every man's study, as it certainly concerns every man very nearly to 
have some knowledge of it; yet the thorough mastery of it demands 
the lifelong, assiduous application of the most powerful intellect. 

While hardly any one would be likely to advocate the exclusion 
of bishops and priests from church councils, it is a moot point 
whether the laity should have a voice and a vote in their deliber- 
ations or not. There was no such representation of the laity in 
the early councils as we now have, for example, in the General 
Convention of the American Church; but this difference may 
perhaps have been due to the character of the times, and princi- 
pally to the extinguishment of those democratic ideas which had 
played such a prominent part in the earlier history of Home. 
!Nor, it may be, were the common people sufficiently educated to 
take an intelligent share in theological argumentations. The 
whole question is one of expediency, for, provided the decision of 
a council is finally ratified by the laity, it is their voice equally as 
if they had had a share in its original passage. Viewing it in this 
light, we may be allowed to think that with the prevalence of the 
idea of popular sovereignty, and with the wide diffusion of edu- 
cation and intelligence, has come upon Christendom a certain 
demand for the admission of the laity to a distinct participation 
in the legislative and judicial management of its affairs. 

Honoring the ministry ever so highly, we must be excused for 
saying that it is after all a caste. Isolated from mankind, possess- 
ing interests of its own more or less conflicting with the common 
interests of the world, looking down from an exalted standpoint 
upon the struggles of the brethren who are obliged to come in 
daily contact with the contaminations of evil, given up largely to 
contemplation of the tremendous realities of another life, it is 
almost inevitable that the ecclesiastic should, to a degree, forget 
that he is a man, and come to take a distorted view of a world, 
and a theology, and a providence, which were intended not for 
ecclesiastics but for men. This is only making a particular appli- 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 87 

cation of the general rule, that every man is the victim of a strong 
tendency towards sinking his manhood in his trade or his pro- 
fession. Which being acknowledged, we are ready to recognize 
one decided advantage likely to accrue from engrafting upon our 
ecclesiastical synods a non-professional element, which will regard 
everything from the common ground of universal manhood, and 
sometimes exercise a most wholesome influence in bringing back 
to earth imaginations too prone to soar away into the illimitable 
void, point out obstacles overlooked by a gaze perpetually directed 
skywards, and even perhaps find it necessary to insist somewhat 
strenuously upon moral obligations that have been forgotten by a 
religiousness sublimated to the height of fanaticism. Let us ask 
ourselves whether our laws would receive any increment of sound- 
ness from being devised by a legislature wholly composed of law- 
yers. Such a law-making body would doubtless shun the incon- 
sistencies which mar our statute-books, and give us a severely 
logical system of enactments, like that marvelous congeries of 
estates-tail and contingent-remainders which is known as the 
English Common Law of Real Property ; but would possibly fail 
to provide the code best adapted to meet the wants of everv-day 
life. 

In the case of an established church a second consideration 
becomes prominent here. The persons most exposed to the seduc- 
tions of that condition, are not those who are hidden in the obscu- 
rity of private station, but those whose eminence marks them out 
as wielders of influence : these are the ones to be approached with 
promises, flatteries, and menaces, and also the ones to become con- 
spicuous for corruption. If the mighty ruler sternly bids the 
Church decide that this doctrine is true or remove the anathema 
from that heretic, the ones to tremble, the ones upon whose 
unshielded heads will descend the full force of a despot's wrath, 
are, first of all, the bishops. If the World has so far prevailed over 
the Church that it has grasped the control, that usurper will not 
long delay to force into the highest places its pliant, unscrupulous, 
and shameless tools. Herein lies another reason why the laity 
should have its voice. 

We have held in reserve the most potent reason of all. The 
drift of all things mundane is towards change : nothing has the 
gift of continuance. The days, the seasons, the climate, the occu- 
pations of men, their constitutions, temperaments, opinions, all 



88 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

shift perpetually. The Church must not change: her faith, 
dependent upon a closed revelation, must remain stable or 
become erroneous. This can be effected only by the intervention 
of deity, but God always chooses to employ instrumentalities as 
far as possible. Strange to say, the clergy, as a class, are more 
prompt to close with any new theory or view of religious belief 
than the flocks over which they preside. In every age certain 
portions of the faith will attain undue prominence in the estima- 
tion of mankind, if for no other reason, because they happen to be 
most vehemently contradicted : there will, therefore, be a decided, 
and perceptible, and dangerous current setting towards the shoals, 
rocks, and cataracts of one deadly error or another, all extreme 
views being necessarily wrong. The clerical mind, dwelling con- 
stantly upon these themes, and resting longest upon those which it 
is obliged to defend from attack, will be much more easily borne 
along by the stream than the preoccupied brain of laymen who, 
caring for religion because it has bearings upon practical life with 
its struggles, weaknesses, perplexities, and trials, rather than as a 
science, are very apt to take those views of the subject which were 
taught them in their tender years. In short, the laity are the 
common sense of the Church, corresponding to that faculty of the 
human mind which is least susceptible of education, which is more 
than any other the resultant of the mental modifications of ances- 
tors, the sum of inherited tendencies, the great balance-wheel of 
the system, which can so safely be trusted to reach conclusions 
that will at least not shame us in the carrying of them out. 

An organization which is above all things conservative, cannot 
afford to neglect the very principle of conservatism. It is com- 
paratively unimportant that it should summon the conservative 
laity to its legislative gathering, but it must in justice to itself 
consign to them at least the right of veto, the power of checking 
the too hasty progress of the ministry by saying, This we have not 
learned from our fathers ; this is not the tradition of our Church : 
there must be something wrong somewhere. In accordance with 
this rule it is manifest that no council can be pronounced (Ecu- 
menical,or General, beforehand, for no matter how numerous and 
respectable may be the attendance upon it, its decisions are not 
the voice of the Holy Ghost, through the Church, till they have 
been sent down to the various national churches and ratified by 
them. And, as matter of fact, all those councils which have been 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 89 

recognized as (Ecumenical, have been so upon this precise ground ; 
not, of course, that there was always (if indeed ever) a formal refer- 
ence and a formal ratification, but that their (Ecumenicity always 
remained in abeyance until (as we would say) the respective con- 
stituencies had been heard from. As every eye was upon the 
assembly, its decrees would be eagerly watched for and closely 
studied ; and if, in course of time, no objections were raised, nor 
remonstrances uttered, these would be considered to have been 
tacitly approved, and the council come to be regarded as General. 
If, on the other hand, strong repugnance should be manifested to 
their reception, partisans here and there would defend the recti- 
tude of the decisions, but the Church as a whole would be thought 
to have pronounced them at last not proven. Thus ISTicsea was 
(Ecumenical, not on account of its containing delegations from all 
parts of Christendom, but because its creed was approved by the 
common sentiment of the Christian world; while Rimini has 
come down to us under the title of a simple council or synod, not 
from lack of bishops to grace its sessions, but by reason of the final 
rejection of its determinations by the Church at large. 

A wide-spread opinion refuses to rest satisfied with anything 
less than complete unanimity. Is this opinion correct, or shall 
we content ourselves with the verdict of a bare majority, or should 
we look for such a large majority as to amount to a practical 
unanimity ? Whatever weight of authority there may be on the 
side of absolute unanimity, we must still be allowed the liberty of 
examining into the subject. Why should such entire agreement 
be required? The Holy Ghost cannot be supposed to have 
imparted inerrability to all the members of the Church, good or 
bad ; nor in truth has He ever bestowed such a gift upon any one 
human being. That the voice of the Church is God's voice, surely 
does not mean that the utterance of every individual in it is a 
word from on high ! What stronger reason is there for expecting 
freedom from mistake in the diocese than in the individual? 
Does a promise to be with the whole Church always imply a 
pledge to each integral portion thereof to preserve it from error ? 
No more than the assurance given to Hezekiah that his life would 
be prolonged fifteen years secured the perfect soundness, or even 
the preservation, of each member of his body. It is very much to 
be feared that no such unanimity ever existed even in the happiest 
days of the Church. The Council of Nicaea was probably the 



90 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

most harmonious that ever sat, and yet two bishops of the number 
attending, Theonas and Secundus, are condemned along with 
Arius in the letter of that Synod as given in Socrates' Ecclesi- 
astical History. As a matter of strict logic a bare majority must 
be adjudged competent to decide or testify. Prudence may 
require that nothing determined by less than a very large majority 
should be insisted upon ; but it is prudence, and not logical 
necessity, that places such restrictions. It is indeed well that the 
utmost caution should be used in defining the faith, lest heresy 
should accidentally be admitted where it is so easy, by a slight 
inadvertency, to change important doctrines in vital points, w T hich 
may pass unnoticed for many years until some unusually acute 
intellect directs its glance upon them. It is immeasurably better 
that deficiency should exist in technical statement of the truth, 
than that additions should be made to the sacred deposit ; that 
some should be suffered to fall short of holding the entire body of 
doctrine, than that the Church Catholic should be committed to 
positive falsehood in the smallest particular. Therefore, it may be 
well that dogmas should be passed only by the " unanimous con- 
sent" of the Church in General Council and Provincial Synod; but 
by the expression we may not, with any degree of propriety, mean 
more than the agreement after deliberation of an overwhelming 
majority. 

Is it the business of a council to say what the faith actually is, 
or what in its apprehension that faith ought to be ? Should it con- 
fine itself to an examination of the members present as to what 
has always been taught in their respective churches, to a thorough 
sifting of the evidence elicited, and to the deducing only of mani- 
fest conclusions therefrom, or is it to roam at large through all 
fields of religious investigation and build up new creeds and sys- 
tems very much as political platforms are now erected? The 
work of the assembly will be more modest under the former view 
of its duties, more brilliant under the latter ; safer by far in the 
first instance, not unlikely to lead astray in the second ; arduous 
and slow if its task is to collate voluminous testimony, easy and 
rapid if there is little more to do than adopt the elaborate con- 
fession of some acknowledged leader ; in strict conformity with 
God's method in revealing His truth when the aim is to ascertain 
by distinct testimony what He has been pleased to say, more in 
accordance with the usual procedure of human pride when the 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 91 

lofty claim is put forward of competence to adjust all difficulties 
through a strenuous effort of the finite intellect. That the former 
view was that entertained by the fathers of Nice, is evident from 
the letter of Eusebius Pamphilus to his diocese as given in the 
twelfth chapter of Theodoret. We will quote the passage : " The 
following is our formulary, which was read in the presence of our 
most pious emperor, and which was fully approved by all : ' The 
faith which we hold is that which we have received from the 
bishops who were before us, and in the rudiments of which we 
were instructed when we were baptized. It is that which we 
learnt from the Holy Scriptures, and which, when among the 
presbytery as well as when we were placed in the episcopal office, 
we have believed and have taught ; and which we now bejieve, 
for we still uphold our own faith.' " After inserting the creed, 
the letter continues : " ' We positively affirm that we hold this 
faith, that we have always held it, and that we shall adhere to it 
even unto death, condemning all ungodly heresy. We testify as 
before God the Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we 
have believed in these truths from the heart and from the soul, 
ever since we have been capable of reflection ; and we have the 
means of showing, and, indeed, of convincing you, that we have 
always during all periods believed and preached them.' " Day- 
light is scarcely clearer than are these extracts in demonstrating 
that those godly bishops felt themselves tightly tied down in all 
their teachings to the faith they had been taught by their pred- 
ecessors, and that they thought themselves bound to shun every 
innovation as too dangerous to tamper with. Now, if all the 
bishops of the Nicene epoch held themselves thus restricted, it is 
not to be doubted that all of the preceding ages had submitted 
gladly to the same restraint, and consequently that what the 
fathers testified to in the year 325, was the identical doctrine that 
had been confided to the Apostles and brethren. It may be 
simple enough to ridicule the tame credulity of these holy men, 
but let the rash being who is about to join in the laugh against 
them, repress the inclination till he has measured his wits with those 
of Athanasius, the true leader of that council, and by contempt of 
persecution and of deadly opposition of every kind displayed a 
heroism of spirit that will justify him in despising men who had 
courage sufficient to brave everything in behalf of the faith they 
so loyally accepted. He who servilely receives a religion or a 



92 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

doctrine because one man, or ten thousand, or a hundred million 
men believe it, or because his father or his remotest ancestor 
adhered to it, for such and no stronger reasons, and without 
thorough examination, deserves to be despised as a slave ; but the 
person who attaches importance to the confluence of a thousand 
different streams of testimony after the lapse of centuries, and is 
confident that what a thousand dioceses maintain as the belief 
originally taught them, and those dioceses scattered all over the 
world, nor some of them enjoying very close intercourse with those 
neighboring, must be the very teaching of Christ, he merely acts 
as a rational man should in not contemning human testimony as 
utterly worthless. 

While, however, these reverend and able men showed them- 
selves mindful of the nature of the trust which was conveyed in 
those words : " Ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem 
and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of 
the earth," they did not abdicate any of the functions of intelli- 
gent beings, nor bear witness like automata that were only able 
to repeat certain forms of words. They did not hesitate to call 
into play all the nobler faculties of mind, but exercised a liberty 
of putting different truths or parts of truths together, and draw- 
ing from them such conclusions as the laws of thought justified. 
This was plainly a necessity of the case, since a new heresy must 
be encountered with a new statement of the truth denied. Upon 
Arius's asserting that the Father and the Son were not equally 
God, it became necessary to introduce the new term Homoousion, 
or Consubstantial, into the Creed. The emergency could not be 
met by the ancient formulary, because the heresiarch was willing 
to recite that, being able to explain its language in accordance 
with his own theory. The old Creed did not, it is true, favor 
Arianism directly in the slightest degree, but might be said to 
countenance it indirectly by silence on the disputed points, so 
that the Church could hardly have been free from the guilt of 
culpable reticence had it not enlarged the time-honored symbol. 
In contending with heresy two processes of witnessing would be 
employed. In the first place, having carefully ascertained the 
exact position of the new teachers, the examiners would be 
obliged to pronounce respecting that position, whether it coin- 
cided with that of the Catholic Church or not. Having assured 
themselves that the tenets were incorrect, they must, in the second 



THEORY OF GENERAL COUNCILS. 93 

place, cast about for a proposition which would safely enshrine the 
counter-truth. Some proposition would presently meet with gen- 
eral favor: this must then be subjected to the crucial test, be 
turned over on every side, dissected, exposed to the action of 
reagents, and unrelentingly cast out, unless, without the shadow 
of a doubt, it appeared to harmonize with Scripture and Tradition, 
first to the assembled prelates, and then to that safer tribunal, the 
common sentiment of the universal body. Is then Tradition on 
a par with the written record? Does the Faith receive incre- 
ments from age to age, and grow ? Have revelations from heaven 
been vouchsafed since the Apocalypse closed the volume of the 
Book with that awful warning ? What has been said to justify 
these questions ? Tradition does not presume to stand abreast of 
Scripture, but takes its humble station behind, and supports it ; 
the Faith does not expand in bulk, but only loses a little of its 
flexibility as it hardens into the superior robustness of advancing 
age ; and no fresh revelation has been made, unless the defending 
and explaining of the old may be, improperly, so considered. A cer- 
tain development has unquestionably been taking place all these 
ages, but not one in any respect hostile to the celebrated rule 
of Yincent of Lerins, " What always, everywhere, and by a 1 
has been believed that is to be held as the Catholic doctrine." 
There has been all along one unchanging, comprehensive, Catholic 
doctrine; but that doctrine has gradually developed outwardly 
into clearer, more logical, more systematic statement and arrange- 
ment. The church of the catacombs believed the Son to be 
Consubstantial with the Father as firmly as did the church of 
remodeled basilicas, but was not quite so conscious of that fact. 
The knowledge was in some sense latent, and may not improperly 
be compared to that which a child has of its father's character. 
Ask the boy what are the distinguishing features of the parental 
character, and you will be answered very vaguely ; but volunteer 
a wrong description, and note how quickly your mistakes will 
photograph themselves upon your listener's countenance. The 
primitive Christians believed in God the Father, God the Son, 
and God the Holy Ghost as all equally divine, and worshiped 
and served them, all and each, as the One, Only God ; but they 
had not thought out answers to all the difficulties involved in 
this belief, nor learned to say that there are Three Persons in 
One Godhead. It was not, we therefore see, for nothing that the 



94 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

Holy Spirit was promised and sent to the Church of God : He 
became to the great and vast organism the principle of divine life 
which marks it as a living body, and enables it to fulfill such 
high and sacred functions as that of defending the faith, and 
formulating it as occasion requires, and handing down the pre- 
cious legacy untarnished to the latest generation, sparkling and 
Hashing ever more beautifully as the attrition of error smites 
away incrustations, and lays bare the true faces of the diamond. 



CHAPTEK Till. 

COUNCIL OF NIC^EA. 

One of the most remarkable cities of ancient times was Alex- 
andria. In nothing perhaps did the genius of the Macedonian 
Philip's greater son display itself more strikingly than in the 
choice of a site for the great commercial emporium which was 
destined to be a monument of his fame long after Asia and Egypt 
should have shaken off the Grecian yoke. Nor was the magnifi- 
cent city less distinguished as the seat of literature, learning, and 
philosophy than as a haven of ships and a centre of trade. Specu- 
lative philosophy was never carried higher or deeper than in this 
great mart of ideas. Here was planted the first of those great 
schools of divinity which exercised such wide and permanent influ- 
ence upon Christianity from the second century down to the decay 
of learning. Founded, according to a not very trustworthy tradi- 
tion, by St. Mark for the instruction of catechumens in the princi- 
ples and mysteries of the faith into which they were to be baptized, 
and therefore called a Catechetical School, founded at all events in 
apostolic times, it soon expanded in the direction of that side of it 
which was employed in training choice minds with more thorough- 
ness than was thought proper to be lavished upon mediocre abili- 
ties, till it became the foster-mother of many leading bishops of 
the Church. In the latter part of the second century Pantsenus 
appears as the head of this school, and raised it to extraordinary 
renown. Whether, or not, this rapid rise was partly due to an 
impetus given by the elegant apologist, Athenagoras, who may 
have immediately preceded him, the upward movement was well 
sustained during the rule of the celebrated Clemens Alexandrinus, 
his pupil and successor, who had the honor of educating the most 
illustrious man that ever occupied the master's chair in that insti- 
tution, Origen, known as the " Adamantine." Origen had among 
his hearers Firmilianus of Cappadocia, that one of the numerous 



96 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Gregories whom posterity distinguishes by the surname of Thau- 
maturgus, and greatest of them all Dionysius, bishop of Alexan- 
dria. He himself had sat at the feet of Ammonius Saccus, the 
founder of Keo-Platonism, as well as of the author of the u Stro- 
mata," and was a marvelously voluminous writer, editing the Old 
Testament with many different versions arranged in parallel col- 
umns, composing numerous commentaries of various descriptions, 
and issuing treatises controversial, didactic, and expository. With 
so numerous a progeny, animate and inanimate, it would be re- 
markable if the character of such an intellectual Samson had not 
impressed itself upon the school of which he was the head. Of 
Origen and of the Alexandrian school it may safely be said that 
they were not inclined to repress inquiry. Freely discussing all 
subjects they pushed investigation to the utmost lawful boundary, 
and showed no greater tenderness in their treatment of religion 
than of any other branch of knowledge. It need not surprise us, 
then, if the very central doctrine of the faith was handled with a 
freedom that was not perhaps far removed from irreverence. 

While it is no difficult thing for those who have low and car- 
nal notions of God to believe in an apotheosis of hero or monarch, 
or to imagine that Jupiter or Brahma has appeared on earth in 
human form, it certainly does strain to the utmost a mind enter- 
taining the lofty conceptions of the divine nature which are the 
priceless heritage of Christians, to apprehend the possibility of the 
intimate and enduring union of the infinite with the finite which 
shall result in a partial and temporary laying aside of the attri- 
butes of the former, and reach a climax in the enduring of a hor- 
rible and degrading death reserved for the worst malefactors. The 
speculative tendency of Alexandria would inevitably lead to the 
free discussion of this tremendous theme, and to the formation of 
many a complicated theory respecting the character of the union, 
and the nature and position of the One who became man that He 
might die for sinners. Theories of the Logos or Word of God were 
indigenous both to Judaism and to Platonism, so that all that was 
necessary was to transplant these into Christianity, and perhaps 
slightly modify them. Now, while too little is known of Arius's 
life to warrant the positive assertion that he borrowed his ideas 
directly from the masters of the great school, and while it is the 
reverse of true that his teachings were identical with those of 
Origen and Clemens, or even very closely allied to them, it cannot 



COUNCIL OF NICMA. 97 

be hazardous to affirm that his doctrine was the natural offspring 
of Alexandria, bearing so plainly the features of its parent that 
the very strongest evidence would hardly convince us that it had 
sprung from any other source than the fountain-head of specula- 
tive philosophy ; the waters of which are not to be recklessly 
called poisonous because a stream or two, imbibing the noxious 
qualities of the soil through which they flowed, exhaled death to 
those who breathed their vapors. 

Early in the fourth century the Church in that great and busy 
city was presided over by a bishop who seems to have fulfilled the 
duties of his responsible station with ability and fidelity much 
above the average. In delivering a charge at some gathering of 
his clergy, in addressing a synod upon some point under discus- 
sion, or, we may conjecture, in preaching to the assembled multi- 
tude on one of the greater festivals, Alexander took occasion to 
define the nature of God the Son with unusual explicitness. 
Among his auditors was one of his own presbyters, who listened 
to his expositions with strong disapproval. Prompted by motives 
into which we will not inquire, this man opposed his bishop with- 
out hesitation, and combated his arguments with no little acumen 
and eloquence. Arius continued to propagate his doctrines in 
public and private, and soon drew after him many adherents in 
Alexandria, in other parts of Egypt, and in Lybia, becoming the 
leader of a very considerable party in the Church, and rising into 
such notoriety that it was impossible any longer to pass him by 
unheeded. Alexander convened the clergy from a greater or less 
circuit on two separate occasions, to advise with them about the 
matter, and finally excommunicated Arius and his most promi- 
nent disciples, dispatching thereupon a circular letter to the vari- 
ous churches apprising them of the measure, and exhorting them 
not to communicate with the outcast. Nothing daunted, Arius 
retired into Palestine and busied himself in making converts of 
men in high place by means of letters. Such astonishing success 
attended his efforts that two hundred and fifty bishops assembled 
in Bithynia, and addressed all the others in his behalf, entreating 
that they would receive the Arians to communion, and require 
Alexander to do so likewise. 

Both parties upheld with firmness the unity of God. The 
original objection brought against Alexander by his rebellious 
presbyter, was that he favored that extreme theory of oneness, 



98 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

according to which Sabellius had taught that there were three 
forms or aspects of the Divine Nature, but not three persons, 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost being nothing more than names of 
three different energies of the one personality. Receding as far 
as possible from Sabellianism, Arius maintained that the Son 
was not only a distinct person from the Father, but also divided 
from Him in essence. If the Son was begotten, argued he, then 
must He be posterior in time to Him who begat Him ; therefore 
the former is not coeternal with the latter, but, although He was 
in existence before the world was made by Him, though He was 
with the Father before chaos itself was created, still He was not 
always in being, but " There was a time when He was not " (such 
was the formula, or, in Greek, i\v ixore ore ovk tjv) ; forgetting that 
the use of the expression Generation and its kindred terms is a 
condescension to man's capacity, and does not at all justify us in 
drawing all the deductions that would be proper in other cases ; 
forgetting, too, what a philosophical mind might have been ex- 
pected to remember, that the deity is not bound by conditions of 
time and space, but is wholly unconditioned, so that it is perfectly 
conceivable that God should have been a father from the earliest 
moment (if we may use such absurd language) of His own being. 
Denying the eternity of the Son, he could not well avoid a denial 
of His essential divinity, and boldly advanced to the positive 
declaration that His substance was not the same as that of the 
Father, being communicated to Him by eternal generation, but 
that, like angels, He was created by God " Out of things which 
were not " (e| ovk ovtojv elvaC). Apparently he did not perceive 
that the all-permeating essence of deity can be communicated 
without loss, or subtraction, or diminution, the Giver retaining 
all, notwithstanding that He has imparted it whole and entire. 
What could have been more radical than an error which touched 
the nature of God, the power of the Saviour, and the efficacy of 
the Atonement? What more deadly in its results, than a heresy 
which robbed God the Son of His honor, and God the Father of 
the glory which, we are told, accrues to Him from the ascription 
of praise to His Only-begotten and Well- beloved Son, which took 
away the value of Christ's redeeming death, and left mankind 
groaning under the bondage of sin ? Shall it be said that because 
Anselm had not yet answered the question, Why God became 
man (" Cur Deus Homo"), the Christian world did not know the 



COUNCIL OF NICJE1A. 99 

difference between a valid and an invalid Atonement, and did 
not feel its faith shaken greatly by these novel and fatal teach- 
ings? Let the convulsive throes that attended the birth of the 
Nicene formula answer in decisive tones. Well might the Church 
exclaim, These men are taking away my Saviour, and I know not 
where they are laying Him ! If the Saviour was " Emmanuel," 
God with us, then they who hide from our longing sight His 
divine nature, do what they can to deprive us of our Lord. This 
did Arius, for he refused to allow that Christ participated in the 
essential being of the Supreme. If he or his followers called Him 
God, they always did it with mental reservations, meaning that 
He was a very exalted creature, higher than any archangel, and 
enjoying the special favor of the Almighty, but still only a creat- 
ure. How astonishing seem then such words as these of a recent 
author who has written at length upon this Council (Stanley, His. 
of Eastern Church) : " When we perceive the abstract questions 
on which it turned (the Avian controversy), when we reflect that 
they related net to any dealings of the Deity with man, not even, 
properly speaking, to the Divinity or the Humanity of Christ, 
nor to the doctrine of the Trinity (for all these points were ac- 
knowledged by both parties), but to the ineffable relations of the 
Godhead before the remotest beginning of time, it is difficult to 
conceive that by inquiries such as these the passions of mankind 
should be roused to fury " ! The learned Dean provokes the 
comment that sometimes the sailors, millers, and travelers, the 
drapers, money-changers, and victualers, of whom, quoting from 
Gregory of Eyssa, he goes on to speak as disputing everywhere, 
in streets, alleys, and market places, about the Subordination and 
Origin of the Son, are better theologians, from that natural instinct 
which discerns relations and consequences, than others whose pro- 
fessional training has too much warped the mind ; for they at least 
saw that a God who is made of nothing, and had a beginning of 
His existence, is no God at all, and that a religion, which pro- 
claims salvation on the ground that God has ransomed us by His 
own blood, is a pure fiction, if the one who made the atonement 
was divine only by figure of speech or by courtesy. No wonder 
that society was stirred to its depths, we say, when Christians 
were coolly told that He whom they had worshiped, upon whose 
divine power they had been taught to lean, to whom they looked 
up with a fervid and reverential love strong enough to carry them 



100 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

with songs of triumph through devouring names, was no more of 
a God in actuality than any one of the hundreds whom they had 
hurled down from their marble pedestals. 

The emperor undertook to allay the ferment, and writing a 
hortatory letter he sent the famous Hosius of Cordova with it to 
Alexandria, in the hope that through these means he would easily 
reconcile the disputants by force of argument and weight of influ- 
ence. Sadly discovering that he had miscalculated the resistance 
to be overcome, he next adopted a plan which could hardly have 
been executed by one whose sway was less extensive and his rule 
less unquestioned. Indeed it almost seems fortunate for the 
Church that Constantine at that juncture wielded the influence 
which he did over its affairs. Mutual agreement might have 
inclined the bishops to congregate, but without the facilities for 
travel afforded them by the imperial mandate which placed at 
their disposal the asses, mules, and horses employed on the roads 
for the transaction of public business, not to mention the generous 
subsistence accorded them by the same authority during the entire 
period of the session, they would hardly have surmounted in any 
numbers the difficulties they would have encountered in attempt- 
ing to carry out their wishes. Even as it was the great majority 
of the members were residents of the East, though of the Western 
prelates a sufficient number appeared to constitute a respectable 
representation. Thus, in this case, a great evil was not unattended 
by visible good. 

At Nice, a city of Bithynia, in the year 325, A. d., assembled 
three hundred and eighteen fathers of the Church, besides presby- 
ters and deacons to the number of about two thousand. Asia 
as far east as Mesopotamia, and to Arabia on the south, Egypt 
and Lybia in Africa, and Europe along the Mediterranean as far 
as Italy were present by delegates. Scythia, Spain, and Persia, 
each had one representative, nor was there wanting a Goth. The 
four apostolic sees of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Rome 
sent their occupants, Eustathius, Macarius, and Alexander, or, in 
the case of Julius, who was incapacitated from attending by old 
age, two presbyters, Yito and Vicentius, in his stead. A few 
prominent figures must be sketched before we proceed to narrate 
the doings of the great synod. 

Hosius, bishop of Cordova, has been already mentioned. 
Being the only man that sat in that council who can possibly be 



COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 101 

considered as the rival of Athanasius in theological attainments, 
coming from the farthest west of Europe as the spokesman of the 
Spanish Church, and enjoying the high distinction of being the 
trusted counselor of the emperor, he may well claim the first place 
in our attention. During the seventy years of his episcopate it 
was his lot to assist at numerous councils, — at that of Illiberis in 
305 a. d., of Aries in 314, of Sardica in 317, over which last he 
presided; and of Sirmium, which he attended with reluctance. 
At this Arian council the poor old man, whose faculties were 
weakened by the strain of a hundred years, was subjected to 
stripes and tortures until he consented to sign the formula to 
which the emperor Constantius, at the instigation of the heretics, 
required the sanction of his venerated name. This momentary 
weakness the patriarch repented before he went to receive the 
reward of his long labors, for it is said that he afterwards 
recanted. We may be sure that there entered the hall of the 
assembly no more honored personage than this sexagenarian, a stead- 
fast confessor in the persecutions of Maximin, and the confidant 
of the throne in regard to the Latin Church. 

If historians are right in seating Hosius on the left hand of 
the emperor, it can hardly be doubted that the still more honor- 
able position was given to the elegant panegyrist who formally 
addressed, as he sat in the hall, that royal master whose ear he, 
above all other ecclesiastics of the East, had gained, Eusebius 
Pamphilus, bishop of Csesarea, a man not deficient in rhetorical 
skill nor in literary talent, and particularly noted for his vast eru- 
dition and the prolificness of his pen, whom we should respect as 
the father of Church history. His fame has been obscured by 
charges of Arianism which may not be entirely undeserved : it 
was, however, his misfortune to bear the same name with the 
bishop of Nicomedia, who sat in the same council and was almost 
more of an Arian than the founder of the sect himself; besides 
being a man who understood and freely used the arts of diplomacy, 
which he did not properly distinguish from trickery. The two 
men are so thoroughly blended by distance and perspective that 
we cannot divest ourselves of the idea that a very close similarity 
between the characters of the two dignitaries did exist ; in which 
judgment moderns may be pardoned when the ancients report 
that he of Csesarea only escaped martyrdom by sacrificing to an 
idol. It ought nevertheless to be recorded as a counterpoise that, 



102 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

out of regard for ancient custom, he declined the proffered patri- 
archal throne of Antioch, because an acceptance would have 
translated him from one see to another. In Eusebius of Caesarea 
we certainly have a striking contrast to Hosius of Cordova, the 
one temporizing, vacillating, courtly ; the other, frank, honest, 
stern, not over-polished, firm as a rock, — for we may permit our- 
selves to forget the momentary weakness of a mortal who has 
reached his tenth decade. May we not say that Constantine 
enjoyed the unusual privilege of actually listening to the two 
counselors who are always seated at the right and left of human 
judgment, one advocating expediency, the other unswerving 
rectitude? What a man these two favorites would have made 
compounded into one ! Such a man was present in that chamber : 
w T e will speak of him after we have bestowed a passing glance 
upon one who rose into prominence about this time. 

Eustathius of Antioch deserves mention not so much for any 
unusual capacities of mind, as for the unswerving purpose and 
sublime courage with which he supported the orthodox cause. He 
was condemned by a synod of the heretics, driven from his flock, 
which resented the robbery in angry tumults, recalled by Jovian, 
banished again by Yalens, and doomed to die in exile. When 
the " Ariomanitse, " or " Raving Arians," as the vehemence of 
orthodox oratory sometimes styled them, were looking about for 
a victim, their glance naturally rested upon one marked out for 
their hatred by the prominence of his station, the clearness of his 
views, and the forcibleness with which he stated his opinions. 
Eustathius bore up manfully against the storm, and deserves the 
praise of all who admire fidelity and heroism. 

As Alexandria had nourished the plant from which came the 
poison, it was eminently proper that it should also furnish the 
antidote. The inflicting of an Arius can be pardoned to a Church 
which gave the world the wisdom, the glorious example, and the 
priceless memory of an Athanasius. Many a time during the sit- 
tings of the First Council must Alexander have congratulated him- 
self upon his discernment and foresight in bringing with him his 
youthful deacon. Though probably excluded by his humble sta- 
tion from taking part in the public debates, the voice of Athana- 
sius, we may be sure, was heard in many a private gathering, pre- 
liminary or held for consultation after the formal opening of the 
Council. His brain supplied many an argument which was lis- 



COUNCIL OF WICJEA. 103 

tened to from other lips, his wisdom dictated many a step which 
the inferior powers of those above him would never have origi- 
nated, and his dauntless spirit actuated more than one timid shep- 
herd when uttering words of higher tone than his own heart would 
have prompted. Extraordinary assertions are these to make con- 
cerning a young man of twenty-five years, but the homage of uni- 
versal admiration ought to be accepted as proof that they are not 
exaggerated. Athanasius may have been hated, as doubtless he 
has been ; but despised, never. The batteries of sarcasm have often 
been leveled against the champion of the Homoousion, openly, as 
by the ultra-liberals of our day, covertly, as by the chronicler of 
the Decline, but always with visible trembling of limb. Of all 
uninspired men, not one perhaps has attained the just renown of 
this hero. His preeminence largely consisted in the universality 
of his capabilities. To rule men requires the very perfection of 
moral and mental powers, and if ever man was born to guide his 
fellow-beings in critical junctures, that man was Athanasius. It 
is true that if intellectual worth is to be measured by the number 
of books read and the facility of producing quotations, many have 
excelled the dauntless archbishop, and among those assembled 
worthies the palm would have to be conceded to Eusebius ; but 
then we dispute the soundness of this test. It would be scarcely 
less unreasonable to calculate muscular strength by the amount of 
food eaten and the rapidity of bodily contortions. Let us apply 
better criteria. Yery much as it is proper to estimate bodily 
power by the resistance overcome, it is allowable to compute 
mental force by success in the arena of debate. The argumenta- 
tive power of Athanasius has never been excelled, perhaps not 
even rivaled : others may have exhibited more dexterity in wield- 
ing the foils of mock combat, but when the question is of down- 
right, solid, practical, and profound reasoning, the superior of this 
divine has not yet been developed. The subject matter of his 
discussions was the deepest that can engage man's attention, the 
Substance of Godhead, and was handled by him with such surpass- 
ing skill that fifteen centuries of continued strife have hardly suc- 
ceeded in fabricating a new weapon, and that the greatest cham- 
pions of English orthodoxy against modern Arianism delighted to 
acknowledge him for their master. No single brain and no com- 
bination of brains could resist his arguments : neither Arius nor 
Eusebius of Nicomedia, nor the whole sect combined, could face 



104 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

them except with quibbles and evasions. That the persuasive- 
ness of his eloquence was equal to its convincingness is far from 
certain, and yet it appears extremely improbable that his fiery 
harangues failed to carry along with them the sympathies of even 
the coldest auditors. In nothing, however, was the mightiness of 
his genius more apparent than in his executive ability. Living in 
a succession of crises, we never read that he omitted to do the 
right thing at the right moment, or that he did it otherwise than 
most skillfully. "When all else were irresolute, perplexed, in 
despair, when the leaders had exhausted every resource, were at a 
loss for an expedient, and doubtful whether to yield or die, Atha- 
nasius's fertile invention was ready with a plan, his understanding 
clear and strong in showing its feasibility, his tact quick to seize 
the most efficient way of bringing the skeptical and doubtful into 
his mode of thinking, and his spirit fearless, commanding, and 
resolute in advancing through opposition and danger to the best 
attainable result. All classes of men bowed to his genius : it 
made no difference whether he was dealing with the cultivated 
and dignified officers of church and state or with the rude mob 
of a seaside emporium, with the disciplined soldiery of the em- 
pire or with the terrible fanatics of the Nitrian monastic com- 
munities, always a king among his fellows, he ruled them with the 
absolute despotism of manifest mental superiority when united 
with singleness of aim and purity of heart. His moral qualities 
were, if possible, even more conspicuous. The holiness of his life 
was such that even his bitterest enemies (and no one ever had 
more bitter ones) could hardly conjure up a calumny against him. 
They did charge him with the heaviest crimes, murder and adul- 
tery, but were each time put to silence in overwhelming disgrace. 
Was he violent in his denunciations of the Arians? We may pal- 
liate that offense by pleading the warmth of controversy, if we do 
not even challenge the accuser to show that the language was not 
justified by the occasion. Shall we require a man to defend the 
central doctrine of the faith with the calmness which might not 
be out of place in a mathematical discussion % Shall we fault him 
for betraying some emotion, some passion even, when contemplat- 
ing the plots and inroads of a set of recusants and outlaws who 
have gone on from "denying the Lord that bought them" to the 
persecution of His followers? If courage and fidelity are virtues, 
when were these ever displayed to greater advantage than by this 



COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 105 

intrepid bishop, who suffered almost everything in behalf of his 
Creed ? In fine, then, we behold at the side of Alexander a youth, 
like St. Paul of insignificant personal appearance, small and 
spare, but destined to be the foremost man of his age in the eyes 
of his contemporaries, and a marvel to all succeeding times, en- 
dowed with a rare combination of the most brilliant and solid fac- 
ulties, a scholar, logician, divine, orator, statesman, advocate, and 
ruler, all in one ; quick, versatile, comprehensive, systematic, and 
profound ; fearless, disinterested, cautious, decided, prompt, tena- 
cious, humble, self-reliant, and self-contained ; pure-minded, zeal- 
ous, devout, gentle, sympathetic, personally magnetic, discerning, 
honorable, and pious; beloved, admired, almost feared by all 
except those who belonged to the opposing party, and by them 
dreaded scarcely less than though he had been the Prince of Evil 
himself Such was the great Athanasius, so named, as it would 
appear from the event, by the spirit of prophecy, for, in very truth, 
of all that have been born to die none has attained more entirely 
than he such exemption from this lot as is afforded by the Im- 
mortality of fame. 

His life, crowded with incidents and dignified by the steadfast 
pursuit, through the entire duration of his episcopate, of one grand 
aim, was not less remarkable than his character. It would be no 
easy task to select from history any one person who has passed 
through a greater round of vicissitudes, and been a prominent 
actor in so many varied scenes of thrilling interest ; and indeed it 
may admit of question whether the most vivid imagination of 
poet, novelist, or romancer has ever invented a biography more 
brilliant with dramatic coloring. He first appears as the sportive 
bishop of a childish game, in which his companions contented 
themselves with personating presbyters and deacons, and dis- 
played the strange intuitive power of childhood by ceding his 
proper place to the future prelate : on this occasion the fortunate 
occurrence of Alexander's passing the group is said to have se- 
cured them all a theological education. Then we behold him 
when barely twenty-five years old Archdeacon, the right-hand 
man of Alexandria's Pope, and we might almost say director of 
the first great synod. "Within five months from the date of his 
return we find him grasping the pastoral staff which death has 
wrested from the hand of his aged predecessor. He is now the 
bulwark of Christendom, occupying the highest throne and plant- 



106 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ing it in the deadliest breach. Charges of a heinous nature are 
brought against him by his enemies, and he is summoned to an- 
swer them before a synod of his adversaries convoked at Caesarea. 
He disdains such a tribunal, but obeys the command of his im- 
perial master so far as to appear at a similar council held at 
Tyre, a. d. 335, attended by fifty of his suffragans. Eusebius of 
Csesarea presided and conducted the proceedings in a manner not 
much to his credit. The accusations covered much ground, and 
had the odor of foul exhalations. Athanasius was equal to the 
occasion, baffling the accusers with marvelous skill. What could 
have been more shrewdly devised than the artifice by which, 
when a lewd woman was introduced to testify that he had sinned 
with her, Timotheus, the presbyter, steps before the creature, 
who did not even know her intended victim by sight, and, as 
though he had been Athanasius himself, interrogates her, draws 
the fire of her over-charged effrontery, and makes her declare that 
he was the man who had committed the deed of violence? More 
tragic is the scene in which the murdered Arsenius is uncloaked. 
In witness of the killing of that Meletian bishop, an embalmed 
hand, after having been exhibited in many places to a shocked 
and incredulous public, was produced in court. "How many 
hands has nature furnished a man with?" we can almost hear 
that incisive voice demand, as the cloak is raised on both sides 
of a well-known figure, and the two hands of the living Arsenius 
are exhibited to the abashed sight of those malevolent heretics. 
But the condemnation of the great man was a foregone conclu- 
sion. Not tamely yielding to the base enmity of his antagonists, 
Athanasius suddenly transfers himself to the principal street of 
the New Rome, and, overawing the guards with his majestic 
bearing, asks justice at the hands of an angry monarch, who 
must have been astonished at his boldness in approaching him. 
Athanasius was banished to the court of Treves, but his seat at 
Alexandria was allowed to remain unfilled. Twenty years, out 
of the forty-six during which he held the crosier, were spent in 
enforced absence. Much of this time he lay concealed in order 
to save his life. Such a man could count upon the fidelity of his 
friends. If any one intended to betray him, which very seldom 
happened, he was always beforehand with the traitor or traitress, 
and made his escape. His asylum was everywhere. He could flee 
to the caves in the desert, sure that the hermits would joyfully 



COUNCIL OF jSTIC^JA. 107 

embrace the death of martyrdom, almost to the last man, rather 
than reveal his hiding-place ; or he could penetrate, according to 
the story told with such evident relish by a not over-scrupulous 
historian, into the sanctum of spotless virginity and there be wel- 
comed, concealed, and served with the devoted attachment and 
unsuspecting trust which no ordinary man could elicit. His 
power of concealment and rapid movement was so surprising as 
to be ascribed by the vulgar to a knowledge of witchcraft and 
magic. It is even possible that he actually saw councils, such as 
those of Rimini and Selencia, at which his presence was not even 
suspected at the time. One might say, without great exaggeration, 
that he possessed the faculty of rendering himself invisible. Upon 
the accession of Julian, he is obliged to flee in a boat up the Nile. 
Ascertaining that enemies are on his track, he turns behind the 
bend of the river, retraces his course, answers the hail, "Where 
is Athanasius ? " with the brief reply, " He is near/' passes on, 
and escapes. Self-possession and shrewdness, beautifully as they 
manifested themselves in the crisis just mentioned, shone forth 
more brilliantly in his response to the demand of Constantius for 
the opening of one Alexandrian church to the Arians ; " I will 
grant a church to the heretics at Alexandria, as soon as you grant 
a church to the Orthodox at Antioch." Neither Horatius nor 
Regulus, not Epaminondas, Miltiades, nor Leonidas appears to 
greater advantage for calmness and heroism in danger than Atha- 
nasius on the ever-memorable night which saw the Church of St. 
Theonas broken into by the soldiers of Syrianus while a vigil was 
being kept preparatory to the celebration of the Eucharist. 
Though urged to save himself, the bishop scorned to forsake his 
people. Ordering the 136th Psalm to be sung, with its inspiring 
chorus, " For His mercy endureth forever," he stood collectedly 
at the altar till the shouts of the assailants, mingled with the cries 
and shrieks of the helpless multitude, had drowned the sound of 
praise, and till the building was nearly emptied of the surviving 
worshipers, and then at last consented to consult his own safety. 

"Wonderfully did Divine Providence provide for the preservation 
of the Catholic Church during this most terrible struggle and fearful 
danger by raising up such a man, and protecting and supporting 
him through those long years of contention. Indefatigable as well 
as zealous, Athanasius allowed himself no respite, but in exile, not 
less than when ruling over his see, his time, energies, prayers, and 



108 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

fervent love were given to the imperiled ark. If he was debarred 
from using other instrumentalities, he could at least wield the pen. 
If any new argument was launched upon the sea of controversy, 
it was exhaustively treated almost immediately, and definitely and 
finally pronounced upon, by an author who might be recognized, 
at least, if not formally identified. Nor need imperial tyranny 
expect to escape unscathed. From out of concealment and exile 
issued a hand which seized the throne of Constantius, and shook it 
till that weak prince raged in impotent wrath as he tried in vain 
to crush the nimble foe who exposed his follies and crimes to a 
suffering and persecuted Church. Like Elijah of old, Athanasius 
seemed to stand alone, a solitary witness for the truth of God, and 
yet unfaltering in his faith and unwavering in his trust, sure that 
the right was on his side and must eventually prevail ; the grand- 
est spectacle earth affords. Says Hooker : " Only of Athanasius 
there was nothing observed throughout the course of that long 
tragedy, other than such as very well became a wise man to do, 
and a righteous to suffer." 

Truly, this was a remarkable synod : such an one it was in 
many respects as none have been, or perhaps could have been, 
since. It was not twenty years since the Apocalyptic vision of the 
Second Seal had come to its end in the final sheathing of his 
weapon by the Rider on the Red Horse, to whom was given the 
great sword wherewith to slay the servants of Christ ; not more 
than seventy-five since the terrible edicts of Decius had rolled the 
crested wave of blood from end to end of the vast empire. 
Scarcely a member of that Council but bare upon his body the 
stamp of persecution. Here stood a bowed figure all wrenched 
and distorted by the sufferings he had borne, there another whose 
face wore the scar of an empty and seared socket where the right 
eye had been till the cruel sword dug it out, here a stately form 
marred by the loss of the right arm, and yet another which stood 
insecurely upon a ham-strung leg. Paphnutius, Potammon, 
Paul of Csesarea formed a group displaying all these varieties of 
mutilation. "When no such plainly apparent traces had been left, 
the removal of the tunic would often have disclosed a furrowed 
back. If we may rely upon tradition, only fifteen out of the three 
hundred and eighteen had altogether escaped maltreatment. 
From such a gathering of confessors, the first that had assembled, 
the last that was likely to be held now that the world had ceased 



COUNCIL OF NICMA. 109 

to rage against the fold, what forbearance, and humility, and 
calmness, and charitableness, as well as unblenching firmness, 
might not justly be expected ! Surely venerable men who had 
fearlessly laid down their lives for the exceeding love they bore 
the Saviour of the world could be counted upon to discuss the 
great questions which were being forced upon their notice in a 
temper befitting brethren and Christians ! Nor were these expec- 
tations disappointed. 

After holding various informal meetings, the council at last 
assembled in solemn state within the walls of the palace, and 
awaited the presence of the Emperor, who in due time appeared 
and advanced towards the upper end of the hall, not, however, 
ascending his seat till invited to do so by the bishops. The right 
of this dignitary to the position in which the narrative places him 
is far from indisputable, nor can any arguments drawn from the 
grace and mildness and efficiency with which he played the part 
of Moderator, possess sufficient cogency to overthrow the convic- 
tion that the precedent thus established was a bad one. Who and 
what was Constantine that he should direct the deliberations of 
this assembly ? In the eyes of the Church the proudest potentate 
is no more than a mere layman. Just as properly might an 
eunuch of the bed-chamber have occupied that throne as Constan- 
tine the Great. The diffidence of the haughty conqueror, and the 
blush which mantled his cheek when he advanced before so many 
honored fathers of the Church, shall not hide from us the fact 
that he had stepped out of his proper province when he presumed 
to convoke them, and that he transgressed still more flagrantly the 
bounds of lay action when he assumed the seat which they did not 
refuse to accord him. However, it seems to be agreed that the 
immediate result of his interference was beneficial rather than 
injurious. Either by reason of the restraint imposed by the pres- 
ence of the mighty prince, or because of the sobering and sanctify- 
ing influence of the severe education through which so many of 
the delegates had passed, a remarkable degree of harmony seems 
to have prevailed from the first to the last. Confessor after con- 
fessor arose to give his testimony as to the belief of his particular 
church, and when all who desired to be heard had occupied 
the floor, a Creed was adopted with very little dissent, and a 
letter drawn up and sent with one accord to those among whom 
Arianism had seen the light. This done and a few other matters 



110 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

duly settled, the chief shepherds, glad in heart at the happy con- 
clusion reached, and refreshed by fraternal communion, hastened 
their return to the flocks they had left, little thinking, it may be, 
how many generations would look back with deep veneration to 
the Bithynian gathering by the shores of the Ascanian Lake. 

It is necessary now to study attentively the theological results 
of the Council. In thinking of the Deity, man necessarily trans- 
fers to Him ideas formed from reflecting upon his own nature : 
no other course is open to us. In regard to the individual man, 
he may be considered in his points of resemblance to his fellows 
or in his absolute distinctness from each and every other being : 
he shares with all who belong to the human family a nature pos- 
sessing certain characteristics, while he stands alone by himself an 
individual man. He has a nature and a personality. Viewing 
still more closely his nature, and comparing it, as it manifests 
itself, as it exists, in him, with the natures (so to speak) of other 
persons, we are drawn on to the question, Is the nature of A. the 
same as that of B., or only similar to it ? If we conclude that the 
relation is that of sameness, inasmuch as that of mere similarity more 
properly belongs to a comparison such as of man's nature with the 
ape's, we must qualify this conclusion by explicitly defining the 
sameness of which we treat as not that of identity, but of quality 
and characteristic : in other words, two men have the same nature, 
but not the same substance. We rise to God, and reverently seek 
to make an application of these distinctions to the Godhead. In 
the Godhead exist three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: 
what is the relation of each to the others ? If we say that the 
relationship is the same as that of man to man, we become Trithe- 
ists at once, and have three separate gods, each of which is infinite 
and eternal. The nature of Divinity is not capable of being thus 
divided : that which is God is God whole and entire ; or else it is 
none at all. Personal distinctions may and do exist ; the Father 
begets, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeds ; the Father 
creates, the Son redeems, the Holy Ghost sanctifies ; but there 
remains somewhat which is the same in all three, something which 
corresponds to substance or nature in man, and yet differs from 
that in not being given in separate portions to each; for the 
Father is whole God (so to express the conception), the Son is 
whole God, and the Spirit is whole God. There are not three 
gods, as there must be if to each appertains a distinct portion of 



COUNCIL OF NICJEA. HI 

the Divine essence, but one God only. A word is needed for this 
somewhat, and must labor under the disadvantage that it will 
savor of materialism. Essence, being, substance, all these convey 
carnal ideas more or less, and are so far objectionable. What 
other course is open than to select the word which seems most 
appropriate, as being most expressive of the important idea and at 
the same time least open to objection, and make it a technical 
word, i. e., arbitrarily (if the reader choose) and authoritatively 
pronounce that this given word shall in theology carry with it the 
meaning we put upon it ? Theology can scarcely be denied, with 
any propriety, a liberty which is freely granted to other sciences. 
The word thus selected was by no means a new one, but can be 
found in more than one ante-Nicene writer of orthodox fame 
applied just as the Council appropriated it, a fact which hardly 
needs further establishment than the confession of Eusebius of 
Caesarea. Tertullian, Origen, Dionysius of Alexandria, and the 
martyr Pamphilus are shown by Bishop Bull to have thus em- 
ployed the "unius substantias" of the Latins, or " Homoousion " 
of the Greeks. It may be deemed unfortunate that an Antiochene 
Council, held some sixty years previously, had condemned the use 
of this word ; but it is undoubtedly true that the disapprobation 
of the seventy fathers was pointed, not at the word, but at the 
abuse of it by Paul of Samosata. In the same way had Tritheists 
first employed the term Trinity, it might have come to pass that 
a synod would have rejected that expression. " Homoousion " 
was a good word and an orthodox word, notwithstanding that for 
particular reasons it had once been thrown aside, and the Council 
of Nicsea had ample justification for its course in adopting it. 
Notwithstanding, much of the opposition which the new formula 
encountered was in reality an exhibition of dissatisfaction with the 
word chosen, and not a denial of the truth which was intended to 
be enshrined in the phrase " Of one substance with the Father." 
Does this prove that the selection was ill-judged? Not till some 
demonstration has been offered of the superior merits and greater 
acceptability of some other word : till such time as this has been 
shown, we may allowably indulge ourselves in the belief that no 
other phraseology would have at once fulfilled all the require- 
ments of the case, and met with less opposition from those who 
were correct in their theology. ' If in litigation it is desirable to 
reach a statement upon which the two parties can join issue with 



112 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

a view to trying the case upon its merits, the word Homobusion 
surely was well chosen ; for, he who denied that Father and Son 
were of one substance manifestly held that the latter was inferior 
in respect of essential being, and therefore, however he might 
refine and ratiocinate, not really divine. Arius and Eusebius 
would doubtless have preferred the insertion of some other word ; 
but would that preference have been attributable to a desire for a 
union based upon truth, or to a wish that they might be permitted 
to remain in communion without renouncing a deadly error which 
they were resolved to retain? Their actions from first to last 
exclude the former supposition. 

The unlearned are apt to be a little startled upon first hearing 
that the barrier between the orthodox and unorthodox was nothing 
more than a matter of a single vowel. With what cannot be 
characterized as a strong regard for fairness, some persons of 
sophistical turn are fond of reiterating that the protracted debate, 
the lasting and bitter conflict, the sad disturbance of Christian 
peace were caused by an insignificant iota. The Orthodox, we are 
to understand, very stubbornly and uncharitably misused their 
advantage of numbers to gratify their dislike for the iota in the 
word Jlomoiousion, which means of like substance. What fanat- 
ical philologists must those grave fathers have been ! The most 
learned and ablest men of the age, men who had, almost to a man, 
braved torture and death for their faith, who were many of them 
nearly at the goal of their earthly course, giving loose rein to 
hoary-headed folly, rent the Christian world into fragments be- 
cause of one letter of a single word ! Strange infatuation ! Who 
does not instinctively revert to those solemn words of Him who 
spake as never man spake : " One jot or one tittle shall in no wise 
pass from the law till all be fulfilled," remembering that jot is the 
Hebrew letter (yod) corresponding to the Greek iota. Nay! 
This tremendous struggle was not about words at all : it was a 
contest which laid hold upon the very Mercy-seat within the veil. 
The venerable council did not shield the Homoousion with the 
lightning of a righteous indignation, because they disliked an iota, 
but because that trifling scratch of a pen made the same havoc as 
an equally inconsiderable effort of a scribe might at the end of 
God. If the addition of an s can change worship into idolatry, 
let us not ridicule those holy bishops if they were very strenuous 
opponents of an i. 



COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 113 

We have said that the Father is not one god and the Son 
another, but that each is whole and entire God : does it not fol- 
low, as a logical conclusion, that the two are in effect but one, 
Father and Son being merely different names given under vary- 
ing circumstances ? We reply, that no such consequence ensues 
at all : it would inevitably ensue were finite natures being dis- 
cussed, but here the question is concerning a nature which is not 
conditioned in time and space, not divisible and limitable, not 
subjected to any of the embarrassments of matter. When we 
assert that the Father and the Son are both the same God, w T e do 
not fall into Sabellianism, as Eusebius upon the same ground 
falsely charged Eustathius of Antioch with doing, for we as firmly 
maintain the distinction of personality as we do identity of essence ; 
and while we teach that the separate persons are the same God, 
we hold that they are persons, and not mere manifestations; that 
they possess different characteristics and exercise diverse functions ; 
that they are so far distinct from one another that they can con- 
verse together, interchange emotion, and commune in the highest 
sense of that word. Does an objector reply that all this is absurd, 
that a being cannot at once be the same as another and yet differ- 
ent \ It is fitting to rejoin that it is not absurd at all, that many 
things on earth are identical in one sense, and yet different in 
another, and that we do not say that the Father and the Son are 
identical in the same sense in which they are distinguished. Let 
the doubting man of science cast his ray of white sunlight upon 
the prism, and, proceeding to his spectral analysis, classify the 
resultant rays into those of light, of heat, and of chemical action, 
and then inform us whence came those three distinct classes if not 
from that unresolved beam of pure whiteness ; and further instruct 
us whether he can produce the photographic effect with the red 
ray, or gather heat from those which are actinic. Light, heat, and 
electricity are not at all the same thing, their properties being 
extremely diverse, and yet all three are supposed to be little more 
than varying phenomena of the same substance, slightly diversified 
wave motion of one imponderable ether. Man's mind is said to 
possess many different faculties, though nothing, perhaps, is more 
universally agreed upon than that these are only phases of one 
indivisible soul ; Perception, Reason, Judgment, Love, Hatred, 
Volition not being distinct from each other as hand, and foot, and 
eye, but rather the self-adaptive action of a single organ modifying 



114: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

itself according to circumstances, just as smoothness and warmth 
are felt by the same sense of touch variously applied. These 
analogies, partly favoring the orthodox view, partly countenancing 
the unorthodox explanations, are not to be mistaken for argu- 
ments : their use is to assist us in attempting to frame conceptions 
of the matter under investigation. The Bible, which we maintain 
to be God's own utterance, reveals to us the two contradictory (ap- 
parently contradictory) statements; on the one side, that Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost are all possessed of one indivisible and unex- 
tended essence ; on the other, that there exist in the Godhead three 
personal Beings, distinct as all individuals must be, not aspects nor 
manifestations, but persons; somewhat perhaps as though Intellect, 
Emotion, and Volition, in man, were separated and erected into 
individual existence ; each possessing his own characteristics, and 
not at all to be confounded with the others. If the logician 
adopts the former proposition and treats it according to his rules, 
he arrives speedily and irresistibly at Sabellianism, or the belief 
that the so-called personalities are mere modes ; whereas if, pre- 
ferring the latter, he proceeds in a similar manner, he will soon 
make port either in Tritheism with its three gods, or else in Arian- 
ism or its kindred errors, with its solitary unipersonal, lonely Deity 
and created Christ. There seems no stopping-place, no harbor of 
refuge, in either case, short of the destinations mentioned. What 
then ? Must a man, with childlike confidence, put his hand in 
that of the pedagogue, Logic, and follow implicitly his guidance ? 
If he does, he will not escape perplexity among the Antinomies ; 
he will be led into a labyrinth, and then deserted by his guide. 
Logic is equally capable of proving that matter is infinitely divisi- 
ble, and that it is not so ; since, on the one hand, you cannot con- 
ceive an atom so small that it cannot be cut into halves, nor, on 
the other, can you admit the possibility of prolonging this process 
endlessly, without ascribing infinitude to matter : here Logic gives 
up in despair and flees from his votaries, leaving them on the 
verge of madness. Logic knows little awe ; it can demonstrate 
the impossibility of an existence which had no beginning : there- 
fore it is atheistic. Logic, when studying human nature, ad- 
vances with steady step and courageous heart, on one road to 
Calvinism, and with not less assured pace, on another highway to 
Pelagianism; which conclusions are mutually destructive. It 
behooves us, then, to seek a level far below that of Logic, one 



COUNCIL OF NIC^A. 115 

thereupon our footing may be truly stable. One of the greatest 
needs of the thinking world, a want which is brought clearly 
before us in the present instance as a necessity of the theological 
world, is a sound 'philosophy. In nothing shines forth more beau- 
tifully the transcendent glory of God's Church than that she, 
through divine guidance, took her stand upon the only tenable 
principles of philosophy ages before the Kantian and Scotch 
schools had begun to work their way towards them. The proper 
method of philosophizing is not to begin at one extreme and 
advance indefinitely from that with the measured tread of ratio- 
cination, but to start simultaneous from both extremes, and strive 
diligently for as thorough a parallelism or coincidence of the two 
lines of thought as may be attainable. Logicians are prone to 
reject as absurd what is not absurd at all, except to those who 
look on the surface. Of two apparently contradictory theses, both 
have been unanswerably proved time and again, and not infre- 
quently a satisfactory reconcilement has been attained after patient 
waiting. What is really, and finally, and evidently opposed to 
reason must be rejected, but not what is obscure only because too 
high or too deep to be reached by finite powers. If caution 
attends the steps of a wise man when exploring terrestrial regions, 
how much more does he need such a monitor when roving afar 
off into the difficult passes of divinity ! Is our knowledge of the 
Eternal Nature so great that we can venture to pronounce upon 
its capabilities ? Are our conceptions regarding it so clear that 
we dare affirm that the trine personality in one indivisible sub- 
stance is irreconcilably hostile to them ? Affirmative replies to 
these interrogatories can safely be made by no one who has not 
pondered them long, patiently, and prayerfully. A supercilious 
dismissal of these questions is rash in the extreme. Our business 
in the great question of the Consubstantiality, is to accept the 
various dogmatic statements of the Bible and the Church, ac- 
knowledge that, in the very nature of things, we must be incapa- 
ble of comprehending them, systematize them as well as we can, 
and when we have ascended as high as our wings will support us, 
humbly terminate our investigations with the self-reminder that 
the unreconciled is not by any means equivalent to the unrecon- 
cilable. 

One additional point of doctrine needs to be adjusted. We 
are taught that three persons are perfectly and absolutely divine, 



116 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

each of them possessing the eternal substance of deity. Are 
these persons in all respects equal ? we naturally ask ourselves. 
Reason assures us that all, being infinite in power and wisdom, 
and equally eternal, must be far removed from all distinctions 
of superior and inferior; and Revelation corroborates this testi- 
mony by ascribing equal glory to the three divine Persons. Yet 
a most important difference is noticeable, in that one only of the 
three has the divine essence of Himself , the others deriving that 
same essence from Him through Generation or Procession. The 
Father alone being unoriginated, derives from that fact a certain 
superiority of prerogative, a priority, not of existence, but of 
order. All the three Persons are equal in nature, but to the 
Father belongs such priority that He can properly exercise au- 
thority towards the Second Person of the Trinity of such a kind 
that it would be inconceivable as exerted by the Son towards 
His Father, as, for example, of sending upon a mission. This, 
which has variously been named the doctrine " De Subordinatione 
Filii " or that " De Monarchia " (1% Movapxia?), is a vital one, in- 
asmuch as without it we cannot support the Unity of God, for, as 
soon as two underived essences are allowed, we have two inde- 
pendent gods. Having been the teaching of the Church from the 
beginning, as Bishops Pearson and Bull evince by a copious 
citation of authorities, it was incorporated in the " God of God, 
Light 0/ Light, Very God of" (from) "Very God" of the JSTicene 
Creed, and in the " Who proceedeth from the Father " of the 
enlarged formula which was set forth by the First Council of 
Constantinople; and formulated, defined, and defended by the re- 
doubtable Athanasius. This tenet, again, cannot be received into 
the convictions without a resolute bending of the stubborn and 
fractious will, a humble confession of the inability of the finite 
intellect to grapple with the mystery, and a reverential regard for 
the uttered voice of God ; but some help may be derived by such 
as have not closed their minds against conviction, from the very 
simple reflection that a son is not necessarily inferior to his 
father ; for, though the second Pitt possibly was so and Sir John 
Herschel, Alexander the Great was not, nor evidently are the 
great majority of distinguished men : they owe their parents the 
respect due from children, and yet may be their equals in every 
other way. 

If the doctrine of the Trinity is repugnant to the human in- 



COUNCIL OF JSriCyEA. 117 

tellect, we cannot but wonder that the mind of man, ignorant of 
the mystery and unable to discover it, is always reaching out 
after it. The leading mythologies of the world, at all events, 
have vibrated between unity and tritheism, finding a permanent 
resting-place for the soles of their feet nowhere ; swinging now 
towards the grand central conception of One God, then seemingly 
becoming gradually more sensible of repulsion from the unutter- 
able loneliness of a Being who can have no satisfying communion 
with any other because all are so very far below Him, until a re- 
coil manifests itself in associating other gods with Him in a great 
Olympus or Walhalla: now, however, antagonisms arise and 
impel irresistibly the natural lover of unity and harmony back to 
some awful, overruling Shape, almost too remote and vague for 
personality. This process continues. Jupiter is the supreme god, 
and then he is not. Neptune and Pluto share his dominion, only 
that all three may succumb to an inscrutable Destiny, which has 
scarcely assumed its icy seat, before the three Fates usurp its 
place, but only that the iron-handed monarch should immediately 
reappear in more impenetrable darkness. Brahma, too, never 
knows how long before Yishnu and Siva will divide with him 
the allegiance of the unstable Hindoo, who, like the Greek and 
Roman, can strike out of his religious faith neither the unity of 
God nor His threefoldness, and forever strives in vain to reconcile 
what to him must remain antagonistic cravings. Nor does the 
Scandinavian heaven contain any god who can boast an undis- 
puted sway. Zoroastrianism was unitarian before it became 
dualistic. In short, the awful solitude of an unipersonal God is 
to the last degree repulsive and intolerable: men reject it in- 
stinctively, unconsciously, invincibly. Even Dualism is more 
attractive, if it be less logical ; but Dualism, even were the two 
gods on terms of friendship, would not satisfy the requirements 
of the problem. The worshiper would feel himself excluded. 
Two equal beings removed from the universe by the whole dis- 
tance between the Creator and what His fiat has evoked, would 
not be lonely, we must admit ; but the natural exclusiveness 
of such a relationship is perceived to warn off intruders. Who 
dare disturb them with representations of his needs? Who could 
hope to divert towards himself one little ray of the mutually- 
absorbed love ? Evidently a third must be equal partner with 
the two, in order that within the enlarged circle of sympathy any 



118 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

inferior being may entertain the expectation of obtaining a wel- 
come admission. Under the shadow of such a throne, we may 
seek refuge, provided the divine Three are thoroughly in accord. 
Father and Son having as their copartner the Eternal Spirit, we 
feel that the love which passes back and forth among the Three 
can easily extend itself to the creature; but then we would be 
tritheists, and soon fall to dreading the contentions of the awful 
Beings whom we worshiped, had it not been revealed to us that 
the Three are, as they must be seeing that Deity cannot be ap- 
portioned, three Persons constituting one Godhead. What, there- 
fore, the instinctive cravings of our God-created hearts have al- 
ways striven after, — what they have sought, but could not find, 
— that has Revelation given us. Thus is the doctrine of the 
Trinity shown to be true, unless man himself is one enormous 
lie. Perish the blasphemous thought! 

Thus the Nicene Council thoroughly committed itself to three 
immensely important doctrines, which are worthy of enumeration : 
1st. That of the Eternal Generation of the Son, " Begotten of his 
Father before all worlds ; " 2d. That of the Consubstantiality of the 
Word, " Of one substance with the Father;" and, 3d. That of the 
Monarchy of the Father, or of the Subordination of the Son, " God 
of God, Light of Light, Yery God of Very God." These were 
contained in the creed adopted by the assembly and then sub- 
scribed by each member of it, with the exception of two who 
proved invincibly recalcitrant. Other matters were deliberated 
upon, the Quartodeciman controversy being decided in favor of 
those whose custom it was to celebrate the Festival of Easter upon 
the nearest Sunday to the Passover, instead of upon the third day 
therefrom, whatever day of the week that might happen to be ; 
a proposed law of enforced clerical celibacy being averted from 
the Church by the courage and forecast of one man, the muti- 
lated Paphnutius, himself unmarried ; the Meletian schism being 
also disposed of by suitable legislation ; and a few other affairs 
settled. All these, however, were not of sufficient moment to 
delay us longer in our haste to trace out the further history of 
Arianism. 

Immediately we begin to lose ourselves in a maze of political 
intrigue, whence we extricate our feet at last, thoroughly satisfied 
that what advantages from its union with the State were reaped 
by the Church at the time of the great Council, deserve to be for- 



COUNCIL OF NICJEA. 119 

gotten amid the accumulation of disasters speedily inflicted upon 
her by the conversion of the throne to Arianism. As we shall see, 
the sovereigns showed little reserve in advocating their own views 
through the instrumentalities which promised to be most efficient. 
Solemn assemblies were called by them, and then kept in durance 
and under terrorism until consent to the imperial projects had been 
wrung from them ; bishops were driven from their sees, banished, 
condemned to death, tortured ; the faithful, in indiscriminate mass, 
were visited with princely anger and smitten with a heavy hand, 
besides being coaxed and tricked into appearing to approve what 
their hearts detested ; till it came to pass, after the Council of 
Rimini, that the whole world, according to St. Jerome, groaning, 
stood astonished at finding itself Arian. The rays of orthodoxy 
shone dimly through the smoke and dust of the conflict, so that 
its bewildered troops could hardly distinguish their own colors. 
The sheep had admitted the wolf when he was lavish of his prom- 
ises, and now felt themselves very much at his mercy. Nero or 
Diocletian might terrify and slaughter Christians, but would never 
undertake to transform them into Gnostics ; Constantine and his 
sons threatened the very life of Christianity by striking at the 
Truth from within the walls which had been built to protect it. 
The peril of the Church at this crisis was, if our principles be ad- 
mitted, most imminent. Look at the epoch of the twin councils 
at Selencia and Rimini, when East and West had both, in regular 
conclave, cast out the Homoousion and virtually declared in favor 
of heresy, and when the different provincial churches retained so 
little freedom that they had no facilities for proclaiming their dis- 
sent from the action of those two halves of a General Council. 
From the unwelcome sight one turns with palpitating heart, and 
with profound gratitude to the Almighty King whose merciful 
interposition rescued His kingdom from the fearful danger to which 
its own folly and faithlessness had exposed it. 

Constantine, congratulating himself upon the admirable results 
of his policy in summoning the Nicene Synod, was doubtless 
greatly irritated at first by the opposition to its decrees shown by 
the Eusebian faction. Beginning with a vigorous attempt to put 
down Arianism by the strong hand, he ended with diverting his 
wrath from the followers of the heresiarch to Athanasius and his 
adherents, and setting on foot severe measures tending towards 
the suppression of Orthodoxy. The means by which he was 



120 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

brought over, whether through the influence of his sister Con- 
stantia, who, upon her death-bed, recommended to his favor an 
Arian presbyter, or through the machinations of his favorite 
Eusebius, concerns us much less than the consequences produced 
thereby, among the most noteworthy of which were the banish- 
ment from the three chief bishoprics of their occupants, Athana- 
sius, Eustathius, and Paul, to make way for heterodox incumbents, 
and the recall of Arius and the other Eusebius. Arius did not 
long survive his triumph, which indeed was never consummated, 
accident, or the course of nature, or perhaps Divine providence, 
removing him from the world he had so long troubled at the very 
moment when his proud heart throbbed at beholding victory within 
his reach. The royal mandate had bidden Alexander, patriarch 
of Constantinople, to admit the arch-heretic to communion. Atha- 
nasius, like Ambrose, would have positively refused to obey such 
an impious command ; but Alexander saw no road but that of 
submission. While the aged prelate prayed within his church on 
the eve of the day which was to witness its desecration unless 
some unlooked-for deliverance should come, Arius was parading 
the streets with his friends. The heretic is checked in his march 
by a sudden call of nature, and never returns to his place in the 
line. "Was he poisoned, or was he smitten by the rod of Almighty 
indignation ? True believers will always experience difficulty in 
shaking off the impression made upon their minds by the sudden- 
ness, wretchedness, and opportuneness of his death, combined with 
the strange fact that three at least of the Truth's greatest foes 
have perished by horrible disease of one particular part of the 
body. Says Sozomen, in quaint language: "With all men life 
terminates in death. We must not blame a man, even if he be an 
enemy, merely because he died, for it is uncertain whether we 
shall live till the evening." Neither, then, may we blame a man for 
writing his own creed on paper, and putting it under his arm when 
he goes to take oath that he believes a particular formula ; but most 
persons will insist that the action is at least suspicious, especially 
in case his declaration should be couched in such phraseology as : 
" I do solemnly swear that I hold the sentiments which are written" 
However we may decide this point, the Church was well rid of the 
deceased, and may without impropriety have congratulated herself 
that she had been saved from a great disgrace, and thanked her 
Lord for so ordering events as to remove him from the stage at 



COUNCIL OF NICjMA. 121 

that precise moment. Whether the story which Socrates reports, 
upon hearsay, concerning the Jesuitical subscription be true, 
whether the extraordinary death of the man be scarcely less sig- 
nificant than what the Scriptures relate about Ananias and his 
wife, or not, a great disturber of the Church's peace was silenced 
forever. 

Constantine soon after, obedient to the summons which ap- 
proaches monarchs as well as slaves, resigned his sceptre to his 
three sons, of whom the one who eventually encircled his own 
brows with an undivided diadem, Oonstantius, was a staunch 
Arian. The twenty-three years of his reign were a dark day for 
the E~icene Christians. Frequent synods in the East employed 
themselves in drawing up new formulae, in which, while they did 
not openly impugn the Homoousion, they took care to state the 
faith in terms less hostile to the errors of the Arians ; in condemn- 
ing and ejecting the champions of Nicsea as holding Sabellian 
notions which they actually abominated ; and in creating new 
prelates from the most violent assailants of the Orthodox Creed. 
The West, stauncher by far than the Orient, stood manfully, with 
true Roman courage and fidelity, around the standard which 
Athanasius had prevailed upon the Great Council to plant. From 
Sardica a trumpet shout rang through the empire reaffirming the 
Homoousion and the Eternal Generation. At Rimini, on the 
coast of the Adriatic, four hundred bishops of the West assembled, 
while those of the East gathered at Selencia in Isauria, the em- 
peror having concluded that convenience and economy would both 
be promoted by convening the two continents in separate bodies. 
The conclave at Rimini spoke with startling distinctness, pro- 
nouncing with abhorrence against all schemes of altering the 
Nicene formula, and rejecting as an abomination the proposition 
of Ursacius, Yalens, and the Arian minority to drop the distaste- 
ful word for the sake of peace. It is saddening to think how the 
frailty of sinful humanity was wrought upon, through that device 
of tyranny, a protracted session with compulsory attendance, in- 
volving exile from home, enforced inactivity, and exposure to 
intimidation, urgent persuasion, and other undue influences, till 
the majority yielded the point, and departed to their homes under 
the reproach of having lent countenance to falsehood. 

The philosophical indifference of Julian withdrew from a rest- 
less faction the support accorded by the government in his prede- 



122 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

cessor's reign. Jovian imitated the tolerance of the Apostate. 
Then came Yalentinian and Valens, dividing the vast territory 
between them. It happened, unfortunately, that the Goths, af- 
frighted and dismayed by the advance of the uncouth barbaric 
tribes of Huns, opened a negotiation with the emperor Yalens ; 
for he, being a pronounced Arian, dispatched missionaries of that 
persuasion, and among them the celebrated Ulphilas, to introduce 
Christianity among these new feudatories of the empire. Thus 
it came to pass that the barbarians, who soon spread themselves 
over the extended domains of Eome in Europe and Northern 
Africa, adhered to that perverted form of religion which claimed 
Arius as its progenitor. Had it not been for this untoward cir- 
cumstance Arianism would have been hard pushed for an asylum 
after Theodosius, a zealous Athanasian, upon ascending the 
throne, had deprived that sect of its churches, and enacted 
severe laws, withdrawing their civil rights from those who clung 
to the heresy, and affixing to them the stigma of social excom- 
munication. 

The centrifugal force which had torn Arius and his followers 
from the orbits in which they should have revolved around the 
centre of ecclesiastical unity, would not suffer them to describe 
ellipses about the newly chosen foci without serious perturbation. 
Like other forces of disruption, heresy does not always submit to 
be checked just at that mark which would best conform to the 
intentions of those who set it in motion. He who teaches men to 
mutiny in order that he may lead them whither he will, has taught 
them a lesson which they and he will remember in the hour of 
their dissatisfaction with his leadership. He who sets the exam- 
ple of obstinate adherence to a favorite theory against authority 
which all are bound to respect, and in spite of proof which ought 
to convince any intelligent mind, has, without anticipating such 
an unpleasant consequence, established a precedent which will 
justify his own bolder spirited followers in pushing that theory to 
extremes he himself shuns and abhors. Such an unbridled soul 
was the skeptical Aetius, whose- impious tenets won for him the 
surname of Atheist. He carried his speculations concerning the 
Son's Generation to the length of maintaining that it was a mere 
creation, and took place in time ; and with respect to His Sub- 
stance argued, as consistency required him to do, that it was in no 
respect like that of the Father, being separated from His by the 



■■ 



COUNCIL OF NICJ5JA. 123 

whole distance which divides the creature from the Creator. How 
Arius himself stopped short of these blasphemous doctrines, hav- 
ing once intrusted himself to the impetuous stream of Logical 
Deduction, we need not trouble ourselves to inquire ; but we cer- 
tainly ought to accord Aetius the praise of having been an able 
and acute reasoner, and subtile and powerful advocate, and a 
frank and fearless speaker. He and his more politic disciple, 
Eunomius, did not lack followers. A far larger proportion, how- 
ever, of those who found themselves outside of the camp, preferred 
to range themselves on the other flank, where waved the banner 
of Eusebius. These rejected Generation, and yet hardly believed 
in Creation ; refused to accept the Eternity, and still confessed 
that the Son came into being long anterior to the universe, or even 
the angels ; would not listen to the Homoousion, and yet allowed 
that the substance of the Son was unlike that of other creatures 
and similar to the Father's. Arius himself had taken high ground, 
giving to our Saviour even the Incommunicable ISTame itself in a 
restricted sense, and placing Him above the highest archangel : 
the Semi-Arians strive to take a flight even above this position, 
and labor to bring the adorable Son nearer yet in honor, power, 
and essential being to His Father. Why, then, it may be asked, 
were these last, if none others, not welcomed back into the Church 
by throwing open the gates wide enough to admit their standard ? 
Because, painfully as they strained their limbs, they failed to 
touch that after which they reached ; because thej r who reduce 
our Lord to the level of a created being, however much they 
may refine upon the idea of creation, as really dethrone Him 
as those do who boldly assert that He was created since time 
began; and because all who detract in any degree from the 
honor due to Him who was begotten, in time, of the Virgin 
Mary, utterly destroy the Christian religion as far as it lies within 
their power to affect its welfare, consign us all to worse than 
heathen darkness, and remand us to the dungeon of despair. 

Weakened by internal dissensions, dismayed by the loss of 
court favor, driven out among the barbarians, Arianism fell 
into a decline, and rapidly disappears from the page of history, 
passing, a century or two later, into utter oblivion, from which 
it was, however, resuscitated, a thousand years afterward, by 
Servetus and the Socini, who, along with Bernardino Ochino, 
gave birth to Socinianism, Unitarianism, and the other forms 



124: TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

of modern Arianism, which almost perished under the inexora- 
ble logic of those incomparable English champions, Bull, Pear- 
son, and Waterland, illustrious names ! loved and honored by 
all true sons of the Anglican Reformation, and worthy of being 
inscribed next below that of the much-enduring hero of the 
Homoousion, our Great Athanasius. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

An instructive anecdote is told by Theodoret and others. 
Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, having a certain object in 
view, upon entering the presence of Theodosius, duly saluted the 
Emperor, but took no notice of his son, Areadius, who was seated 
near him, and had recently been clothed with the purple; or, as 
another authority has it, actually patted the youth on the head 
and called him his dear child. This audacity provoking the mon- 
arch's indignation, he ordered the presumptuous prelate to be 
ignominiously expelled from the palace. The order could not, 
however, be executed before the artful bishop had suggested the 
words of St. Paul : " And that every tongue should confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father P The 
offender was at once pardoned and received into favor, as he well 
deserved to be, after having lodged in the imperial breast against 
Arian dishonoring of God the Son an argument, which time and 
change served only to establish there more firmly. It is a pity for 
the dramatic effect of this scene that Arius, or, at least, Eunomius, 
could not have been introduced as a witness : it would be no 
mean exercise of ingenuity to put into their mouths a reply that 
would have stood them in any stead. 

Among those that arrayed themselves against the Council of 
Nice was one who, upon the death of Alexander, contended with 
Paul for the possession of the archi episcopal throne of Constanti- 
nople, and drew down upon himself such detestation on account 
of the cruelties perpetrated, by his orders or through his con- 
nivance, at the time of his accession, that he was finally deposed. 
This man, Macedonius by name, was the originator of a new 
heresy. It is plain that the question of the Homoousion touches 
the Third, as closely as it does the Second, Person of the ever- 
blessed Trinity. At first the discussions did not extend beyond 



126 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

the essence of the Son, the Arians seemingly not caring to divide 
the attention of the world by introducing another element into 
the debate, and the Orthodox most gladly refraining from throw- 
ing temptation in their way ; but such enlargement of the con- 
troversy was inevitable. To all those who accepted the Catholic 
Faith the determination of Nicsea covered the case of the Holy 
Ghost as completely as that of the Son, for, if the Second Person 
of the Trinity is of the same substance as the First, there is no 
imaginable reason why the Third Person should not be so like- 
wise. On the other side, the question would be an open one. 
"When the Son is made similar in essence to His Father, the Holy 
Ghost will probably be imagined similar only to the former : 
still he may be put on a par with Him, the same degree of simi- 
larity being allowed to both ; or He may even be advanced above 
Him, as would seem an almost irresistible consequence under the 
execrable doctrine of Aetius. A high Arian in his views respect- 
ing the Son of God, whom he admitted to be like in all things to 
the Divine Parent, Macedonius adopted the notions of Sabellius 
regarding the Holy Ghost, maintaining that He has no proper 
individual existence, but is an energy or influence pervading the 
world. Nevertheless, the views of Macedonius seem to have fluc- 
tuated considerably, turning now towards the one pole of doctrine, 
and now towards the other ; as was very natural in a prelate who, 
at one epoch of his life, courts the favor of the Catholics, and at 
another is a disgraced fugitive from their righteous indignation. 
His heresy was never very threatening. No Macedonians are 
heard of in the West, and the sect expires soon after it has effected 
the one good it was calculated to bring about, the rounding of the 
Nicene Creed by the addition of a paragraph concerning the 
"Lord and Giver of life." The Christian world always will 
marshal itself in hostile ranks about the great question of the 
Eternal Essence, but the battle seems destined to be fought out 
on the ground afforded by the revelation of an incarnate God, 
and only an occasional skirmisher will wander off into the less 
attractive, and less accessible, regions of speculation about the sub- 
stance and nature of the Sanctifier. 

The keen and self-confident intellect of Arms had scaled the 
loftiest heights of theology. If the work of irresponsible explo- 
ration was to be continued, pioneers must content themselves 
with inferior altitudes. From speculating about the substance of 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 127 

Deity, an easy step is the one to philosophizing about Incarnate 
Divinity. It being granted that the Son of God always was per- 
fect God, the next question is, Did He assume perfect humanity \ 
His flesh, doubtless, was ordinary human flesh, and it was ani- 
mated by a soul at once sensitive and rational ; but was there over 
and above these the third part of man's complex nature, the intu- 
itional, immortal part, which alone is strictly spiritual f Is it 
reasonable to believe that the perfectly excellent essence of the 
Infinite united itself with an inferior spiritual nature ; that the 
inflexible, and all-righteous, and absolutely disinterested Will of 
God bound itself by the ties of a common personality with the 
weak, imperfect, easily biased volition of the creature? What 
need was there of such an alliance % Was not the innate Divinity 
competent to fulfill all the functions of the higher spiritual nature? 
Must not the indwelling Divine Substance, indeed, merge into 
itself all other spiritual being within the same personality, so over- 
awing it that it would fall upon its face as dead, utterly unable to 
execute one single office ? Such reasoning is neither without force, 
nor lacking in seductiveness; though it does not stop where we 
have tried to stop it, but properly, when once admitted, goes on 
to deny the Saviour a Soul as well as a Spirit, the true and effi- 
cient Will, for instance, being a faculty rather of the former than of 
the latter. Truly, such an incarnate God would not be incarnate 
at all in the sense that He became a man among men, experienced 
their trials, obeyed their law, bore their sins, and died their death. 
He would be God tabernacled in fleshy but not God tabernacled in 
manhood, which term is evidently synonymous with flesh in such 
a connection, in which it denotes the whole human organism, of 
which it is a part and for which the word is used by metonomy ; 
a position which is strengthened by the consideration that it 
would have been of no avail that He should become flesh, unless 
He became man utterly. The first, as far as we are informed, to 
preach the doctrine to which we allude was, strangely enough, an 
ardent admirer of the great Athanasius, and had once enjoyed 
the honor of intimate association with that illustrious man during 
a stay which he made in Laodicea upon one of his innumerable 
journeys. Disciples, however, very frequently fail to reflect accu- 
rately the doctrine in which they have been instructed. It often 
happens that distortions of a system are caused not so much by 
perversity of intention as by imperfectness of comprehension or 



128 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

inaccuracy of memory. Apollinarius of Laodicea displays in his 
conduct none of the qualities that belong to the leader of heretics, 
unless an invincible love of knowledge be numbered among them : 
on the contrary, when he had been very harshly treated by the 
weak and arrogant George, bishop of the city, he meekly continued 
to implore forgiveness and restoration, till the inexorableness of 
his superior drove him to despair. His chief fault may be con- 
jectured to have been a too exclusive and absorbing pursuit of 
secular learning, to the neglect of studies more suitable and neces- 
sary to his exalted calling ; since he was very fond of the Grecian 
classics, incurred the episcopal displeasure by attending a lecture 
of the sophist Epiphanius, and invented for himself a theory of 
the Incarnation which perhaps betrays too great familiarity with 
mythological fables concerning the descent of gods to earth. If 
a Christian priest admires and studies Homer more than St. John, 
he may become a composer of beautiful hymns, but runs a fearful 
risk of being given over to the delusions in which he revels. 

As Apollinarius is said not to have admitted any fusion or 
commingling of the two natures in Christ, thus rejecting a neces- 
sary deduction from what he certainly did hold, it is proper to 
inquire how far any one, and especially a teacher, is to be held 
responsible for logical inferences. This much-vexed question 
allows, if we are not greatly mistaken, of a very simple solution, 
based upon the obvious distinction between the man and hfs 
belief. The impetuous accuser who insists that the founder of a 
new sect must believe everything which seems to flow, as a logical 
sequence, from the doctrines he proclaims, is bound by the same 
reasoning to exonerate him altogether ; because if a man must be 
taken to hold a tenet or a doctrine merely because logic deduces 
it, then must he be wholly incapable of falling into error, inasmuch 
as true logic never can become the pillar and buttress of falsehood. 
In all charity and fairness, no matter what glaring inconsistencies 
may lurk in any one's creed, he ought not to be held accountable 
for any deductions but those he himself draws. With respect to 
the new theory itself, the case is very different. That theory, 
when firmly established in the hearts of the multitude, becomes 
an entity as much as if it were real flesh and blood, and will be 
delivered of a progeny. Though the mastiff wear the lion's hide 
with triumphant art, it will procreate curs, and not whelps. When 
the adder is abroad, we fatally delude ourselves in calling it a 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 120 

harmless garter-snake. Therefore the theory or the doctrine 
which can only bring forth confusion, immorality, and falsehood 
ought to be treated with no delicacy whatever by those whose 
hearts yearn for the welfare of Christendom, but be freely ex- 
posed and forcibly repressed by every lawful means. Apollinarius 
is not to be accused of holding what he distinctly repudiated ; but 
Apollinarianism must carry the weight of every error to which it 
gave being, or towards which it leaned. 

The heresies of Macedonius and Apollinarius required au- 
thoritative answers, having risen into such prominence that they 
seemed to threaten the very life of Orthodoxy, unless they should 
be promptly stigmatized and crushed. Had they come against it, 
they two alone, Orthodoxy, it is true, need hardly so much as 
have turned its face towards them ; but when they advanced be- 
neath the banners of Arius, or in close league with so vigorous a 
foe, the matter became incomparably more serious. Besides the 
urgency of this peril, further occasion for the assembling of a 
second council was found in the need of reaffirming the doctrine 
of the first, which had been violently and persistently impugned 
by so numerous and wide-spread a faction. Creed after Creed, — 
this closely resembling the Nicene, that widely departing from it 
while retaining the same general arrangement, — had been pro- 
mulgated by synods, Arian confessedly, Arian covertly, Semi- 
Arian, Catholic, and mixed, till men's minds had become greatly 
confused, and the unlearned might almost be pardoned if they 
professed themselves unable to distinguish, in this Babel, the an- 
cient tongue of the true Children of God. It was high time that 
the Church should again put herself on the record, proving to the 
world that her faith had not been changed by all this uproar, and 
guarding her sons against fresh error that had lately arisen. 

Yet gloomy forebodings must have troubled the leaders of the 
Catholic Church when looking forward to the probable conduct 
and action of another Council, should one be convoked in sub- 
mission to the evident demands of the situation. So altered had 
become the position of Christianity in the world that, instead of a 
meeting, from far distant regions, of saints and heroes, scarred, 
bruised, maimed, and disfigured by the terrible ordeals which had 
beautified and strengthened the soul even more than they had 
marred and weakened the body, the convocation would be one of 
dignitaries who, in many respects, were hardly distinguishable 



130 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

from the pampered, proud, and profligate senators, consuls, and 
commanders of the decaying empire, and were far more likely 
to display the violent passions which make theological debate so 
fruitful in asperities, than the humility, mildness, and charity which 
certainly ought notably to characterize those who preach to the 
populace the religion of the Crucified. Yarious causes worked 
together in thus demoralizing the Church, among which two are 
worthy of remark. The sad consequences of the marriage con- 
summated by the great Constantine have already been dwelt upon. 
It must be seldom that a pious husband or wife will not feel dis- 
astrous effects from union with an ungodly partner, — disastrous to 
the spiritual tone of the life. When such connections are brought 
about by events over which the suffering party had little or no 
control, grace sufficient for the extraordinary need may doubtless 
be expected ; but when the son or daughter of God allies him- 
self or herself with one who is an alien from the commonwealth of 
Israel, who cares naught for God or religion, who is a devotee at 
the shrine of this world's deity, in that case has there not been a 
tempting of God, a presumptuous casting down of one's self from 
the pinnacle of safety, and a consequent forfeiting of the promised 
angelic ministrations? The great society of the baptized did not 
cease to be God's Church when it lowered itself so far as to crouch 
beneath the imperial ^Egis, but it did subject itself to incalculable 
danger from too close contact with the world, from the contami- 
nating touch of wealth and power, and from the insidious tempta- 
tion of depending for safety and success upon the assistance of the 
government. Behold the event ! Who could hope to sit secure 
as archbishop of Constantinople if unacceptable to its Lord and 
King ? What remains for Paul or Gregory, for Chrysostom him- 
self, let the imperial brows once knit against him, but to come 
down from his seat and surrender the staff which God and His 
Church have intrusted to him ? Let him be ever so clearly the 
very man designated by supereminent ability, and fervid eloquence, 
and popular favor to rule over the greatest city of the world as its 
pastor and guide; let him be the leader of public sentiment 
throughout Christendom and the most dreaded foe of heterodoxy, 
still, if my Lord the King thinks that his posture is a trifle too 
rigid, down he must be dragged at once, in order perhaps to make 
room for a successor only distinguished by his incompetency, cor- 
ruptness, indolence, and indifference. That this is no fanciful 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 131 

picture is witnessed by the whole history of the period, and espe 
cially by that portion of it which relates the strifes for the posses- 
sion of the greater sees. Prosperity wrapped its deadly coils about 
the Church, and mangled, though it could not slay her. Effemi- 
nacy, cowardliness, love of the world, desire for ease, craving for 
display — these were no unimportant auxiliaries in the evil work. 
Without secular assistance, the Church would have increased more 
rapidly, exercised a more undisputed influence, and have been more 
fruitful in works of piety, than it was with it ; but that prosperity 
would not have been of the same kind, nor have wrought such 
evil. The prosperity which injured the Church was not different 
from that which sapped the empire : it was one which involved 
the possession in great abundance of the good things of this life. 

If the primary cause of the religious retrogression was the 
Church's union with the "World, the second is to be looked for in 
the loug continuance of the Arian strife. Religious discussion is 
not unattended by evils. In the heat of debate the antagonists 
will say and do many things repugnant to their own sense of pro- 
priety. Involved in continuous argumentations, polemics will be- 
come oblivious of the practical significance of the very things 
about which the war is waged so hotly. It would seem to the 
modern who reads of such a rapid succession of synods and coun- 
cils, who is told that the public service suffered serious inconven- 
ience from the monopolizing of roads and beasts by eager ecclesi- 
astics thronging to the fray, who is perplexed by the effort to keep 
the track of the various shadings and colorings of heresy which 
perpetually annoyed the faithful, and who marks the frenzy which 
apparently had seized upon the great majority on both sides, as if 
for the half century between the Councils of Nice and Constanti- 
nople, the whole mass of believers did little else than wield, fur- 
bish, or whet the sword of controversy. Such a state of affairs 
cannot be healthful. The fathers who sat on the banks of the 
Bosporus came not, as they whose hall was swept by cool breezes 
from the Ascanian Lake, from tending their flocks with peaceful 
assiduity, accustomed to be startled now and then by the wild 
beasts' roar, and sometimes to be themselves mangled by their cruel 
fangs, but otherwise to act the part of unwarlike shepherds : they 
gathered from provinces and cities rent and torn in the mad war- 
fare of fanatics, habituated to the battle-cries of contending factions, 
taught to fence with the sharp weapons of logic, not unused to see 



132 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

the grosser missiles and implements of carnal contention employed 
in adjusting controversies concerning the Essence of God, till 
streets ran with blood, and other sights, yet more abominable, 
offended the eye of Heaven. Fifty-six years of internal strife had 
not been without their deteriorating effect upon the Church. Whose 
was the fault? Was it her own fault that " Homoousion " and 
" Homoiousion " had become the battle-shout of hosts and the 
rallying-cry of mobs? Had she erred in insisting upon psycho- 
logical distinctions, when prudence, common-sense, and divine 
command obliged her not to make the door- way quite so narrow? 
Not so. The wolf and the bear must be excluded, even if you are 
compelled to contract the entrance to an inconvenient narrowness. 
Yet the fault was her own : she ought not to have closed with 
Constantine's alluring offer. Had she retained her independence, 
Eusebius and Arius scarcely could have made head against the 
overwhelming odds. Their only hope from the beginning drew its 
inspiration from the court. It was court influence and imperial 
power which drove the catholic and orthodox prelates out of their 
churches and installed heretics in their stead. What was the arm 
which excluded Athanasius from his proper seat for twenty years ? 
What hand scourged the refractory bishops at Rimini into com- 
pliance with the will of the Arians, holding them there in captivity 
till they yielded to the cajolery of a clique ? What power stood 
behind the heretical faction when it rose in Antioch or in Caesarea, 
in far Cappadocia, by the blue Mediterranean, or where the pent- 
up waters of the Black Sea sweep past the Golden Horn ? Yalens, 
or Constantius, or Constantine was punishing the Church for her 
blindness when he sent forth his decree, or dispatched his messen- 
ger, or marched his troops against her peace and her interests. 

Under such unfavorable auspices must a Council be held, if at 
all. Might it not, then, have been more prudent to defer for 
awhile the calling of it, till at least some portion of the intense 
polemic excitement had subsided ? The Church was not left to 
decide this question, but was relieved from the responsibility by 
the issuing of a royal summons to the bishops of the East to as- 
semble at Constantinople, in the year of grace 381. 

The choice of place was a natural one. Not only was Con- 
stantinople the very seat of the Macedonian heresy, but the thea- 
tre of the whole Arian struggle had in a measure been erected 
within its precincts. Then, too, New Rome was the darling of the 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 133 

Eastern Empire, already outshining the ancient city of Latium, and 
designed to become the metropolis, as well as the capital, of the 
world. "Well had Constantine judged when he determined upon 
that site, by the shores of the Bosporus, for his intended city. If 
Alexandria bears testimony to shrewdness and foresight in the 
heroic Macedonian, Constantinople witnesses yet more eloquently, 
by her rapid growth, wonderful prosperity, and astonishing lon- 
gevity, to the genius of the victor at the Milvian Bridge. Situated 
where two continents approach within a mile and a half of each 
other, and close by the deep channel which connects several im- 
mense bodies of water, possessing, moreover, an excellent harbor, 
she had but to open her hands and grasp the commerce of the 
world. Why should not Religion avail herself of the ships, cara- 
vans, and emporiums of commerce? Thitherward flowed natu- 
rally the concourse of divines as to the centre of trade, art, litera- 
ture, learning, and theology. 

The motives which actuated Theodosius in convening this 
council were possibly as pure as those which moved the first 
Christian emperor in setting him the example ; though there may 
not have been wanting among them a desire to emulate the fame 
of his greater predecessor. Theodosius, it may be, thought that 
his name would go down to posterity as that of the Restorer of 
Catholicity and Second Father of the Church, shining with even 
brighter effulgence, as that of the Overthrower of Arianism, than 
had it fallen to his lot to accomplish the easier task of demolish- 
ing a superstition already worn out, like that of pagan Rome 
when Constantine applied his torch to the tottering fabric. Nor 
can the one great blot upon his escutcheon, the massacre perpe- 
trated by his order at Thessalonica upon a promiscuous multitude, 
be considered as proving him undeserving of the peculiar favor 
with which he has always been regarded by the Orthodox ; for 
that horrible deed was provoked by a gross popular outrage upon 
the representatives of the crown, was little more than an over- 
severe execution of justice, and was bitterly repented by the ex- 
communicated sovereign standing stripped of his regal ornaments, 
an humble suppliant for pardon and reconciliation, publicly solic- 
iting with sighs and tears, within the church of Milan, from the 
clemency of St. Ambrose the removal of the sentence which 
barred him from the altar. Theodosius was almost an exemplary 
sovereign, stained with none of the private delinquencies, and 



134: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

scarcely with any of the flagitious crimes which befouled the repu- 
tation of his illustrious predecessor. The choice of a Spanish 
provincial by Gratian as partner of his throne and ruler of the 
East, withdrew him from the elegant and comfortable retirement 
of agricultural pursuits, to which he had betaken himself with 
singular prudence and self-control when the ingratitude of the 
government slew the father who had already made the name of 
Theodosius illustrious by the victorious generalship of more than 
one arduous and difficult campaign ; and plunged him forthwith into 
the toils and perils of the Gothic war, which his prudence soon 
brought to a fortunate conclusion. From this time till the death of 
Yalentinian II. his reign was marked by generosity and magna- 
nimity towards a weaker colleague, temperateness, except in the few 
instances in which he was hurried away by passion, as in the well- 
known case of Thessalonica, a general regard for equity, and by pru- 
dence, foresight, and wisdom. He at last found himself undisputed 
master of the Horn an world, but did not survive that event long 
enough to satisfy us that his hand was sufficiently firm and skillful to 
guide the chariot of state without assistance in such troublous times. 
Indeed, it is more than probable that he would have taken counsel 
rather of indolence or prudence than of ambition, and allowed his 
sons to reign independently over distinct portions of the empire. 
No incident is recorded of this great prince, the last who reigned 
over the undivided realm, more to his credit than his returning 
to Yalentinian the provinces from which he had been expelled by 
the usurper Maximus, and adding to them those which that 
tyrant had seized in the reign of Gratian ; and this, although he 
held Yalentinian wholly in his power, and his own unaided 
prowess had destroyed the usurper. It is no ordinary character 
that can practice such self-abnegation under circumstances of 
peculiar temptation. 

If any emperor was to manage ecclesiastical affairs, Theodosius 
would be less likely than almost any other to control them to the 
detriment of the Church. Besides the virtues with which he had 
adorned his private station, and which he did not shake off with 
the ordinary garb of the farmer, he possessed the additional recom- 
mendation of being a staunch Catholic. A most objectionable 
custom of the age having delayed his baptism till he had reached 
mature years, it was not before he had passed through the dangers 
of one campaign and an illness so severe as to imperil his life, that 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 135 

he received at the hands of Ascholius, the orthodox bishop of 
Thessalonica, that regenerating sacrament which should have 
sanctified his infant days. From that moment the whole weight 
of his influence was cast upon the side of those who held to the 
Homoousion, and not infrequently the stress of his wrath de- 
scended upon the contumacious heretics, as he doubtless regarded 
them, who stubbornly remained Arian after he had denounced 
their impiety. Imperial edicts attached the penalties of exile, fine, 
and confiscation to the reception or conferring of heretical ordina- 
tion ; prohibited all meetings for purposes of heretical worship, and 
declared forfeited the building or ground so desecrated ; placed all 
heretics outside the pale of the law to a great extent, shutting 
them off also from all prospects of civil employment, disqualify- 
ing at least one class from making their wills, and inflicting capi- 
tal punishment upon those who dared to entertain the impious 
tenets of Manes, or to celebrate Easter according to a very ancient 
custom. While we cannot avoid feeling disgust at such tyran- 
nical and absurd laws, we must attribute much of their objection- 
able features to the spirit of the age, and exonerate Theodosius 
from the charge of having been intentionally cruel and domineer- 
ing. We ought also to remark that, by sinking under these op- 
pressive edicts, Arianism showed that it did not possess the vitality 
which may reasonably be expected in a sect really battling for the 
truth of God. 

When Theodosius, yielding to a request to have disobeyed 
which would have been to throw away his life, mounted the 
throne of Yalens, the Goths had lately routed the army of that 
Arian tyrant, and slain him on the disastrous field of Hadrianople. 
Under Fritigern these valiant barbarians were already giving 
auguries of the days when Alaric should thunder at the gates of 
the Eternal City. From the banks of the Danube and the distant 
tracts of Mcesia they had gradually moved forward towards the 
seat of dominion, till now, allied with the savage hordes of Huns, 
Alani, and kindred tribes, they had actually advanced their front 
within sight of the gates of Constantinople. At such a juncture 
was Theodosius summoned to the field. During the continuance 
of this life-and-death struggle, and probably taking advantage of 
the leisure afforded by a slight lull which attended upon the 
formation of a treaty of alliance with Athanaric, the leader of the 
Ostrogoths, he turned aside from the anxieties of warfare in order 



136 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

to set on foot measures for promoting the welfare of the Catholic 
Church. This compact must have been ratified about the begin- 
ning of the year 381, and in May of the same year the council 
assembled at Constantinople. 

Neither in numbers nor in dignity does this assemblage 
deserve to rank on a par with that great First Council about 
which so much interest has always centred. Some one hundred 
and fifty bishops presented themselves, with the learned and 
famous Gregory of Nazianzum at their head : in addition to these 
orthodox prelates, Macedonian bishops to the number of thirty-six 
had obeyed the summons of Theodosius, who hoped that they 
could be brought to accede to the demands of the Nicene Chris- 
tians. The picture of this synod painted by the competent hand 
of its president does not impress us with the feeling of respect 
and veneration which should attend such a gathering of digni- 
taries. We are thrown back upon the reflections already detailed 
concerning the deteriorating effects of the union of Church and 
State. In their synodical letter, the Constantinopolitan fathers 
dwell upon the hardships which they had been called upon to 
bear in defense of the faith. Without at all doubting their verac- 
ity, and having fresh in our memories the persecutions suffered by 
Athanasius, Hosius, and other champions of the Homoousion, we 
must be permitted to doubt whether very many of those bishops 
had really undergone torture or endured exile, and also to remark 
that, even if they had, they had probably not borne their afflictions 
in quite the same spirit as those who had been cruelly treated by 
the heathen. In the latter case there would be the quiet resigna- 
tion of men who, conscious of their own helplessness, bowed to the 
will of Heaven ; in the former, something at least of the restive- 
ness, combativeness, and lingering ferocity of those who expected 
presently to gain the upper hand themselves. 

It is not fair to compare these ancient synods with the con- 
ventions of modern times without making some allowance for the 
former. Sorrow and shame depress the mind of the churchman 
who revolves therein the undignified and even uproarious scenes 
that cast so dark a shadow upon the celebrated gatherings of the 
Church at Ephesus and loaded with reproaches the name of another 
Alexandrian bishop, the famous Cyril ; meditates upon the melan- 
choly fact that hardly a single synod, large or small, can be ac- 
quitted of similar misconduct ; or hears that Gregory Nazianzen 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 137 

speaks in reproachful language of the very meetings over which 
he himself presided. Did not Gregory's brush color a little too 
highly ? Even if it did not, one reflection intrudes itself upon us 
which at least serves to explain the unfortunate circumstance with- 
out smearing the grouped faces with one hopeless daub of black. 
Parliamentary law, as we now call it, does not seem to have been gen- 
erally understood. The Romans, being preeminently a people of 
law and order, doubtless observed certain well-defined methods of 
j)rocedure in their comitia, in their courts of justice, and in trans- 
acting the business which came before the Patres Conscripti. The 
same genius of organizing must have presided over the informal 
meetings in thefora and porticoes. Nor had the spirit of method 
deserted its old haunts as yet in the era of the General Councils ; 
an era which was remarkably productive of legislation and of 
codification, as the very mention of the names of Theodosius and 
Justinian must remind every student of history. Notwithstand- 
ing this predominance of the legal idea, it does not seem that 
there then existed a recognized system of rules which were ap- 
plicable to any meeting for debate, discussion, or the arrange- 
ment of general affairs. If such a manual did exist, it was not 
introduced into any of the ecclesiastical synods, as far at least as 
our knowledge extends. Lamentable experience has taught man- 
kind that the only safe course is to observe the etiquette of debate, 
and to have that determined by the absolute voice of a presiding 
officer, who pronounces his decision subject only to a formal ap- 
peal to the entire body, basing it upon a recognized code of regu- 
lations. Unfortified by such a rampart of published rules and 
regulations almost universally observed, the president of one of 
those early councils soon found his position forced whenever unu- 
sual excitement reigned, and himself obliged to withdraw and 
await the advent of a partial calm, which was not to be expected 
till the combatants had expended their energies, or some fortunate 
circumstance had diverted their attention from each other. Even 
if, then, we are not permitted to excuse these tumults by referring 
them to the character of an age in which, the force of coherence 
having shown itself unable to bind together securely such vast 
territories and such different races of men, the various elements of 
destruction were gradually working up to the surface of society, 
and already creating that ferment which was to result in the dis- 
ruption of the empire ; if we are precluded from pleading such an 



138 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

excuse in behalf of men who were the chosen leaders of a body of 
their fellow-mortals that was supposed to stand apart and separate, 
in professed subjection to a King who inculcates the virtues of 
meekness, brotherly-love, and mutual forbearance ; we are never- 
theless fully justified in urging on their behalf the mitigating cir- 
cumstance that human ingenuity had not yet devised a Manual of 
Parliamentary Law. Let the harsh critic who would scathe all 
those holy men with his sweeping condemnation, let the sad- 
hearted Christian whose reluctant eye drops a tear upon the page 
which tells the story of the Robber Synod, remember that these 
were assemblies in which men came together to pronounce judg- 
ment upon questions which to them were of paramount impor- 
tance, upon which they had meditated till the dizzy brain fled 
from thought, and which they had defended with all their best 
powers for perhaps two generations; and that these assemblies 
were not managed according to any clearly-defined system. He 
who has had the slightest opportunity of observing deliberative 
gatherings, knows that no test of temper equals the strain and 
excitement of a warm debate. The weightier the question, the 
deeper it stirs the soul. The profoundest questions of theology 
seem to hold suspended the world's destiny, and to authorize the 
employment of any means, fair or unfair, in getting them prop- 
erly decided. The debater who is thoroughly persuaded that the 
victory of his opponents is a triumph of Hell, and is equivalent to 
the signing of an eternal death-warrant for incalculable multi- 
tudes, is not likely to view with equanimity the artifices of the 
other party, or be sparing in his denunciations of the wrongs 
which he sees or dreads, or to be conciliatory in his bearing 
towards those whom he accuses of perpetrating or intending in- 
jury to the truth. It may well be doubted whether a concourse of 
the worthy and pious men who now rule over the Anglican Com- 
munion, would escape our strong disapproval for having indulged 
in very unseemly behavior, should they venture to throw aside the 
safe-guards of Parliamentary Practice, and conduct their sessions 
under the lax regulations of the ancient councils. Bishops, how- 
ever tried and true, are still but men, so that it need not astonish 
us if they sometimes exhibit the passions and weaknesses of men. 
If, when the distance and feebleness of the central authority have 
encouraged cities to undertake the administration of their own 
affairs at the cost of frequent seditions, an occasional prelate puts 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 139 

himself in alliance with a mob, or at its head, in order more to 
protect himself and his church than to annoy or oppress others ; 
or if, in the heat of discussion, language escapes the lips of an 
anointed shepherd which would shock his ears coming from his 
own sheep, and deeds of violence are committed by him in the 
terrible earnestness of his convictions from which the colder zeal 
of mercenary demagogues would shrink amid the tumults of a 
political meeting ; in either case we are not permitted to write the 
offender down an unreclaimed ruffian or an odious hypocrite. 
Some allowance should be made in accordance with the considera- 
tions just advanced. At Nicaea the awful presence of the Em- 
peror tempered the discussions to a mild and healthful warmth. 
At Constantinople a less commendable state of things prevailed, 
but it is not to be credited that the clamors were literally like 
those of magpies or geese, or that the members were a set of 
coarse, rude savages. We feel fully warranted in maintaining 
that the assembled bishops were, in the main, men for whom the 
Church need not greatly blush. 

A brief sketch of the chief character may be useful as illus- 
trating the period. The remote province of Cappadocia gave, in 
that age, to the army of the Lord three of its ablest leaders, who 
were knit together in the closest ties of affection. Of these, Basil 
first rose into prominence as Bishop of Csesarea (in Cappadocia), 
in which position he attained great distinction for ability in the 
pulpit and on the platform, for skill in ruling his province, and 
for the persuasiveness and force of his literary productions. His 
younger brother, Gregory, made bishop of Nyssa, in the same 
province, was so highly esteemed in his own day that a council of 
Antioch commissioned him to make a general visitation of the 
churches in Arabia ; and he is still frequently referred to by those 
who do not scorn to drink of the stream of theology near its 
source. The other Gregory was the brother-in-arms of his great 
contemporary : together they pursued the studies of a liberal edu- 
cation at some of the most famous schools of the time, and espe- 
cially at that of Athens, in which they were fellow-students with 
Julian the Apostate, then a mere youth like themselves; and 
together they retired into ascetic seclusion in Pontus. Their sepa- 
ration was effected when Basil, upon his own sudden elevation, 
intent upon increasing the number of bishops in his province, 
rather unscrupulously condemned his friend to the oversight of 



140 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Sasima, a wretched little town about thirty miles from Tyana. 
Thence, or rather from his retreat at Selencia, he was summoned 
to undertake the important and difficult labor of bringing Con- 
stantinople back to the Orthodox faith. In accomplishing this, 
his eloquence and manly policy were so successful that he soon 
heard himself nominated by the general voice as patriarch of that 
city. The council, being then in session, took up the cry, and 
Theodosius himself, having sent a detachment of the imperial 
guard to wrest the Cathedral of St. Sophia from the Arians, led 
Gregory in triumph through the thronged streets, and seated him 
upon the throne from which the heretic Damophilus had just been 
driven. This sudden exaltation might well have intoxicated the 
humblest mind, but the heart of Gregory still beat as true as in 
the days of his lowliness. JSTot the learning, not the mighty elo- 
quence, not the immortal writings, of this saint envelop him in so 
bright a glory as his conduct when circumstances dismissed him 
into obscurity almost before he had tasted of the delicious cup 
just lifted to his lips. The Egyptians were, for some reason, hos- 
tile to him, and revived against him the old prohibition of trans- 
lation ; whereupon, with excusable indignation, Gregory offered 
to retire from his throne. His offer being promptly accepted by 
both council and emperor, the archbishop quietly put off his robes, 
laid down the key of his palace, spoke his farewell to weeping 
thousands, trampled his hopes under foot, and retreated to his 
native Nazianzum, which was destined to share the undying fame 
of its noble son, — never nobler than when, almost without a sigh, 
he turned his back forever upon the scene of his short-lived dis- 
tinction. 

Whatever may be the opinion of posterity concerning the 
Council's action in substituting the senator Nectarius for Gregory 
Nazianzen, and in promoting the perjured Flavian to the episco- 
pal see of Antioch, it must be admitted that the conclave trans- 
acted most creditably such business of lasting moment as came 
before it. Besides dignifying the bishop of Constantinople, as 
befitted the growing importance of that city, with the next place 
after the bishop of old Rome, the Second General Council adopted 
three measures that intimately concerned the welfare of Christen- 
dom : (I.) first, it reaffirmed the doctrine and Creed of the Council 
of Nicaea ; (II.) secondly, it condemned Macedonianism, declared 
the divinity and consubstantiality of the Holy Ghost, and enlarged 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 141 

the Creed by expanding the third paragraph so as to contain 
an expression of the full belief of the Catholic Church regard- 
ing the Third Person of the Holy and Ever-adorable Trinity ; 
(III.) and, thirdly, it also condemned Apollinarius and the false 
teaching which denied to our Lord the possession of a human 
spirit. 

How can the claim of this council to (Ecumenicity be estab- 
lished, in face of the fact that it was an exclusively Eastern 
gathering? That it did not contain Western bishops was the 
result, not of hostile purpose, but of circumstances. The Sov- 
ereign, at whose behest it was convened, then reigned only over 
those provinces which belonged to the government of the Orient ; 
and in consideration of the fact that the great Arian emperors, 
Constantius and Valens, had preceded him in ruling over that 
portion, he could not be expected to see the necessity of asking 
Gratian to unite with him in calling the chief pastors of the 
churches within their respective territories to a combined synod, 
the principal object of holding which would be to extirpate a 
heresy which scarcely existed in the dominions of the Occidental 
monarch. 

"We are thus compelled to behold the Church divided into two 
nearly equal parts by a well-marked line of division. The later 
civilization of the ancient world belonged to two distinct types 
corresponding to the two dominant races which had their homes, 
in historic times, upon the two peninsulas which prolong the 
southern shore of Europe so far towards the inhospitable coast of 
Africa. Issuing from one great parent-stock, the Indo-Germanic, 
and speaking languages both derived from the ancient Sanscrit, 
these two races, though each containing a strong infusion of the 
Pelasgic element, were marked by characteristics as distinct as 
their tongues. Appearing first upon the historic stage, the 
Greeks distinguish themselves by their successful prosecution of 
all pursuits requiring intellectual power, and speedily attained 
the first rank in literature, philosophy, science, and art. Grecian 
genius has never been equaled. To select the equals of the poets, 
orators, sculptors, painters, and thinkers who adorned a small and 
not over-popidated district of country, within the compass of a 
century or two, we are obliged to ransack the entire world and 
extend our search through a score of centuries. The Roman 
lacked genius : his wit, eloquence, and originality were borrowed. 



142 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Virgil, Cicero, Seneca, what were they in comparison with 
Homer, Demosthenes, Plato ? He did have, however, what, for 
the practical uses of life, is commonly more useful to its possessor, 
talent. If, for example, the thought were only furnished him by 
^Eschylus or Sophocles, by Socrates or Aristotle, the Latin could 
dress it out in beautiful attire, and exhibit it so transformed that 
the most penetrating would hardly pierce its disguise. One talent 
in particular seemed inherent in the Latin nature, a talent which 
marked the city of Rome from the very day of its foundation ; 
which dimly appeared when the Sabine women were seized ; 
which emerged into the light of day as tribe after tribe was swal- 
lowed up by the rising kingdom ; which shot up in bright flames 
towards the zenith when Roman arms subdued, and Roman policy 
converted into allies and subjects, the nations with which they 
came in contact ; and which shone with steady and ever-increasing 
lustre while a system of government was being devised which 
should knead and compact the vast dominion into one organic 
whole. As a soldier or as a legislator the Roman, with his wonder- 
ful skill in organizing, never has been excelled. Along with this 
talent went appropriate qualities of soul, courage, firmness, sturdy 
loyalty, inflexible determination ; qualities without which the 
mere skill would not have availed much. 

The mutual action and reaction of natural constitution upon 
language and of language upon natural constitution, is too compli- 
cated a subject for present investigation ; but the fact nearly con- 
cerns us that the two languages also had their distinguishing 
marks. As a medium for conveying abstract ideas and fine dis- 
tinctions, the Greek was incomparably superior, so that, even if a 
man made the attempt to philosophize in Latin, he soon gave it 
up in disgust at the clumsiness of the tools with which he was 
obliged to work. The mere deficiency in the vocabulary might, 
perhaps, have been made up in course of time ; but in order to 
equalize the Latin with the Greek, and give it the wondrous 
flexibility of the latter, nothing less would have had to be accom- 
plished than its total recasting. The musicalness and stateliness 
of the Roman tongue fitted it tolerably well for the forum and 
the senate chamber ; but what could it do in the stoce without an 
Optative Mood, an Aorist Tense, or the marvelously expressive 
Particles that convey with such accuracy each nicest shade of 
meaning? 



THE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 143 

The conquests of Alexander had carried the Grecian language 
and Grecian civilization beyond the Indus, and established them 
so firmly in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and in other regions of 
the East, that the Romans never supplanted them with their own, 
genius herein exhibiting greater strength and tenacity than the 
organizing talent. The advance of the Roman legions towards 
the far north of Germany, across the breadth and length of His- 
pania and Gaul, and even into the British Isles, had reduced the 
continent of Europe under the dominion of a civilization almost 
purely Roman. So, then, the empire naturally tended to break 
across a median line, being Greek as to the Eastern portion, and 
Latin as to the Western. 

Now, it is to be noted that Providence seldom bestows upon 
the same man lofty genius and estimable qualities of soul. Genius 
is usually unstable, if not fickle. Where the character is not 
lacking in earnestness, perseverance, and courage, pride very often 
mounts upon its back the man of mighty intellect, and soars with 
him into the forbidden regions of dangerous speculation. What- 
ever objectionable characteristics entered into the composition 
of the Greek were aggravated by long contact with Asiatic 
effeminacy, till the good were greatly obscured, or wholly lost. 
Enervated by a relaxing climate, infected by the bad example 
of the indolent inhabitants, the Greek of Antioch, or Iconium, 
or Chalcedon, or Constantinople, was not the Greek of Athens, 
Sparta, or Corinth. : yet he inherited a dialect which almost com- 
pelled him to become a philosopher, and more or less of the noble 
qualities which had graced his ancestors while they dwelt among 
the mountains, and tilled the sterile soil, of Attica and Lace- 
doemon. 

When Christianity was brought to these two races, it was re- 
ceived by them in accordance with their natural peculiarities. 
The Greek seized upon the wonderful truths which it revealed, 
sought adequate expression for them in the rich treasury of his 
incomparable mother tongue, compared each with every other, in 
order to ascertain the exact limits of all, and then wove them into 
beautiful systems wherein the splendor of each was enhanced by 
the radiant loveliness of the rest. Origen or Dionysius had at 
his command a language in which he could easily express any^ 
thought that the human mind had ever conceived, without invent- 
ing new words, or having recourse to cumbersome paraphrases ; 



144: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

one, too, which would enable him to follow up any thread of 
investigation into regions of which the attenuated atmosphere re- 
fused to support human respiration. It hardly needs to be added 
that the Greek-speaking race supplied the Church with her theol- 
ogy, at least so far that it pursued all investigations, and furnished 
all the arguments upon which a question was to be decided. 
Unfortunately, however, Greek genius being yoked with Oriental 
fickleness, serious deviations from the direct line of truth were 
often threatened and narrowly escaped. There was manifested 
among the Oriental sages too much of that restless and unbridled 
spirit which wandered perpetually after "some new thing." 
Without the bold and strong-pinioned Greek intellect, Christian 
theology would have traveled along contentedly upon such low 
levels that the vigorous mind must have turned away from it 
with a feeling of unconquerable repugnance; without the bul- 
warks thrown up around it by that philosophic race, it must have 
lain exposed to the deadly attacks of the first heretic who assailed 
it with skill and determination. On the other hand, unless it 
had been restrained by some invincible force of conservatism, not 
improbably some new Socrates would eventually have been raised 
by Attic fervor upon a loftier pedestal than St. John's. 

With all the clumsiness and the poverty of a language which 
had no word for Saviour, and in which Pcenitet me had only the 
force of I regret, with all the stolidity of mind which failed to 
produce one single independent thinker of eminence, the children 
of the Eternal City could yet boast the inheritance of certain ster- 
ling characteristics which are really more valuable and more honor- 
able than the keenest insight, the widest grasp, and the most 
sustained activity of mind. The Roman of the Decadence, how- 
ever degenerate, was a descendant of the Scipios, Catos, and Bruti 
of the Republic, men who could neither be bought nor intimi- 
dated, who embarked in a cause with all their souls, and adhered 
to it till death set them adrift, who seized a standard with such 
unyielding grasp that the bleeding stump was often found clinging 
to it on the battle-field. He could still be loyal, sturdy, invinci- 
bly brave as of old. Satisfied with the old, which he had thor- 
oughly tested, which had grown into his very life, around which 
his affections had learned to twine themselves, he was not eager 
to exchange it for something else, merely because that would be 
new. If penetration and originality distinguished the Greek, the 



TEE FIRST COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 145 

equally valuable qualities of calmness and impartiality in judging, 
deliberateness in acting, and tenaciousness in maintaining honest 
convictions, marked the Latin as his peer in the Church of God, 
one who might set him an example as well as learn a lesson in 
divinity from his lips. The one soared high in air, the other 
marched laboriously over the rough highway; but the former 
gained little either in distance or renown by a flight from which 
the proud bird was often obliged to alight, and tarry for the 
advance-column of its slower ally, in order to make sure that it 
was steering its course in the right direction. 

In order that the Council of Constantinople should be entitled 
to the name (Ecumenical, it is not necessary that it should have 
contained delegates duly appointed and duly certified from every 
separate portion of Christendom, any more than that it should 
have been an universal mass-meeting of Christians ; nor is it 
requisite that a general summons should have been issued and 
conveyed to every member of the episcopate ; but it was sufficient 
that it should comprise a respectable number of bishops in com- 
munion with the Church, provided their action in matters of gen- 
eral importance should afterwards be honored with the stamp of 
universal approval. In the case before us, the fact of this general 
approbation is placed beyond the reach of doubt. We need not 
inquire into the date of the synodical letter to Damasis, Bishop of 
Rome, Ambrose, Ascholius of Thessalonica, and the other bishops 
assembled at Home, professing to have been written by the or- 
thodox bishops " convened in the great city of Constantinople," 
nor as to whether any, and what, reply was made ; for we have one 
unanswerable proof that the Council was acknowledged throughout 
the Christian world. If the Council of Nice was a General one, so 
must also that of Constantinople have been, since the latter altered 
a decree of the former, and the alteration was adopted every- 
where. The first set forth a Creed, and commanded it to be 
received, without addition or subtraction, under pain of damna- 
tion ; the second added almost an entire paragraph to this univer- 
sally adopted formula. A General Council could take such a step 
with entire propriety, upon the principle that no legislature can 
bind succeeding legislatures by passing an irrevocable law, but 
no inferior authority could do so without incurring the announced 
penalty: therefore, as the Creed of Constantinople universally 
took the place of that one which had been promulgated by the 



146 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

earlier synod, the Church at large manifested its acceptance of 
the later synod's coordinate authority. In the face of the fact 
that the enlarged formula gradually came to be recited publicly 
in all the orthodox churches, it sounds strangely to hear learned 
men say that the (Ecumenicity of the Second Council was not 
generally acknowledged 



CHAPTER X. 

THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 

At a bend of the river Orontes, where it breaks through the 
parted chain of Lebanon and Taurus, covering a plateau on the 
left bank of the stream, extending its streets to an island in front, 
and creeping up the precipitous slope of Mount Silpius, which 
shuts off the southward view, stood the famous city of Seleucus 
Nicator, the capital of the dynasty to which he belonged, and for 
awhile the successful rival of Damascus as metropolis of Syria. 
Beautifully situated, adorned with one of those interminable col- 
onnaded streets that embellished Tyre and many another Syrian 
city, filled with magnificent buildings, numbering probably about 
half a million of inhabitants, and not undistinguished in point of 
culture, Antioch was no unworthy competitor with Alexandria for 
the queenly diadem of the Mediterranean. The experience of 
Julian when he took up his temporary abode among the Anti- 
ochenes on his way to his fatal campaign against Sapor, and of 
Theodosius, when, goaded by heavy taxation, they overthrew and 
ignominiously treated his statue and those of the royal family, 
seems to justify the general opinion of their contemporaries, which 
stamped the citizens of that metropolis as indolent, luxurious, 
effeminate, and fickle to the last degree. In such a community 
learning must be cultivated under great difficulties. The prevailing 
effeminacy, impurity, venality, and general unhealthiness must in- 
fect the intellect more or less. Still, philosophy flourished exten- 
sively in many an unwholesome atmosphere during the long period 
of Rome's decline. We have already taken a glance at the early his- 
tory of Pantsenus's celebrated Catechetical School, and seen it trans- 
formed gradually into a close resemblance to our modern theological 
seminaries. In Antioch arose, somewhat later, a similar school, 
destined to vie in reputation, and to strive for the palm of contro- 
versial victory, with the Alexandrian. At the head of it appeared, 



148 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

in the latter half of the fourth century, a man of some note, the 
same who as Diodorus, Bishop of Tarsus, sat in the Second 
General Council. It was his good fortune to have for pupils the 
" Golden-mouthed " John (surnamed from his eloquence Chrysos- 
tom), the peerless preacher of Antioch and stern patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, and Theodore of Mopsuestia. Presently the pupils 
become masters, and in the room of the scholar are found Nesto- 
rius, future patriarch of Constantinople; John, soon to be set 
over Antioch itself; and a famous author, Theodoret of Cyrus. 
The fundamental difference between these two great Christian 
schools seems to have been that, while the more ancient one ad- 
hered to that mystical method of interpreting Scripture which had 
so notably characterized its great disciple, the " Adamantine," — 
which was always delving for hidden treasure, in contempt of the 
literal meaning that lay before the reader's eye, — the more recent 
one had hit upon a sort of Via Media, or middle way, between 
bald literalism and the vagaries of untrammeled mysticism ; a 
method which has since gradually grown in favor till it has won 
an almost undisputed sway over the learned biblical scholars of 
England and Germany, establishing itself upon a general survey 
of entire passages and a critical examination thereof by the 
aid of grammar, history, geography, antiquarian research, and 
philology. 

Scorning the odds of numbers, Alexandria evinced no hesita- 
tion in combating single-handed the entire East. She affected to 
look down contemptuously upon the upstart importance of Con- 
stantinople, pretending to regard the court limits as coterminous 
with the precincts of the city, and all the inhabitants, from the 
humblest frequenter of the church of St. Sophia up to the patri- 
arch himself, as sycophants and truckling courtiers. The natural 
jealousy of commercial emulation had been intensified and embit- 
tered by the sharpness of the Arian controversy. Therefore, when 
Nestorius ascended the throne of Constantinople, concentrating in 
himself two such causes of animosity, it is not strange that the 
hostility which had led Theophilus to depose Chrysostom at the 
Synod of the Oak, broke out with increased fury, now that a 
prelate of no gentle and yielding temper ruled the fierce mob of 
the Eclectic city at the mouth of old Father Nile. 

As Cyril of Alexandria plays such a conspicuous part in the 
history of the Third Council, we may say a word about him at 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 149 

once. Few men among those who have received the honor of 
canonization have come in for a larger share of abuse than this 
prelate. Indeed, much of his conduct was such that the most 
ardent friend of orthodoxy would be averse from undertaking to 
defend it. Being the nephew of his immediate predecessor, 
Theophilus, who had invaded Constantinople with a large retinue 
of ecclesiastics and a body-guard of Alexandrian sailors, and 
almost dragged the immaculate bishop, noblest orator of all the 
fathers, from his seat, Cyril seems to have inherited the vices of 
the haughty and violent relation whose movements he accom- 
panied all the way to the Golden Horn and the suburb of Chal- 
cedon. A sojourn of five years among the recluses of Nitria 
served (it may be no breach of charity to say with his friend, Isi- 
dore of Pelusium) mainly to feed his spiritual pride ; and a 
severely contested election certainly had not softened his disposition 
when he felt himself secure upon the lofty seat to which he had 
aspired. It is not denied that he dealt cruelly with a very peace- 
able set of Christians, — the inoffensive E"ovatians, — shutting the 
doors of their own churches against them, and confiscating 
their sacred vessels. His lawless act in forcibly expelling a colony 
of forty thousand Jews, must have been exceedingly distasteful to 
the many among his own zealous adherents who had profited from 
the industry and wealth of that people. The prefect, powerless 
to coerce the mighty ecclesiastic, sent a complaint, which scarcely 
reached the deaf ears of Theodosius, but rebounded upon the head 
of Orestes himself, bringing against him five hundred of the 
monks, who scattered the guard, assaulted his chariot as he drove 
through the city, and covered his face with the blood of stone- 
bruises. Whether Cyril hounded on these savages or not, he made 
himself an accessory after the fact by paying unusual and unmer- 
ited honor to the corpse of the ringleader, Ammonius, who was 
buried with all the ceremonies due to martyrdom. The story of 
Hypatia, the justly-celebrated lecturess in philosophy, has been so 
well told by Charles Kingsley that we will not delay upon it. 
Her utterly causeless murder by Peter the Reader and a mob of 
parabolani was not, it may be, directly instigated by their bishop, 
but posterity will never be persuaded that a large share of the 
responsibility for the atrocious, unmanly, cowardly deed did not 
rest upon his shoulders. It is also said that the patriarch freely 
expended immense sums of money in purchasing the favor and 



150 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

support of those who had influence at court ; and there can be no 
doubt of the truth of this heavy accusation. How Cyril is to be 
exonerated from these terrible charges we cannot conjecture. 
Granting that he was actuated in all these misdeeds by a vehe- 
ment desire to advance the interests of his church, we still say that 
insurrection, arson, deadly assault, murder, bribery, general op- 
pression, and conspiracy are not light offenses, to be blown away 
with a breath. Cyril may have been a brave, intelligent, and 
learned man, and a skillful politician ; but before he can be pro- 
nounced an ornament of the episcopal order, the ineradicable 
moral ideas of mankind will need to be revolutionized completely. 
If the patriarch of the great orthodox Alexandrian Church was 
better fitted to act the part of Fritigern or Genseric, of Brutus or 
Rienzi, of Marius or Pompey, than to sit in the chair of St. Mark, 
we need not defend him : he was but a man. Let him go ! The 
worst creature may be an implement in God's hands to accomplish 
great results. Neither the validity of episcopal authority, nor the 
just value of the Ephesine canons, depends upon the character of 
Cyril. Let him pass, unvarnished, for what he was. 

Controversies concerning the Incarnation raged just as hotly 
after the Council of Constantinople as before. For those who sub- 
mitted their own judgments to that of the great body, two doc- 
trines concerning the God-man, our Blessed Redeemer, had been 
established, that He was perfect God, consubstantial and coeternal 
with His Father, and that He was perfect man, lacking no part of 
triplex human nature. Was there, then, no change produced in 
either the Godhead or the manhood by their conjunction ? "When 
the chemist has ascertained the appearance and properties of all 
the simples, he can yet form no idea what the result will be of 
compounding them. For example, Oxygen is a substance most 
necessary for the support of life, and Sulphur is not particularly 
deleterious ; but mingle one part of the latter with three of the 
former, and you have the powerful poison, Sulphuric Acid, which 
seems to retain few, if any, of the characteristics of its elementary 
constituents. To compare great things with small, does no fusion 
or commingling take place between the two natures in the God- 
man ? Such was the question which next came to the surface : 
how should it be answered? The Scriptures could hardly be 
expected to supply any direct answer : they would, and did, speak 
of Christ, while on earth, sometimes as a man, ascribing to Him 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 151 

the characteristics of man's finite and limited nature ; and some- 
times as God, attributing to Him the glorious and stupendous 
characteristics of the Infinite Nature : beyond this, into regions of 
speculative philosophy, they did not go. Still the question was 
of immense importance, since the obvious consequence of fusion 
would be to destroy, at least partially, one or the other nature, or 
both, and thereby overthrow the validity of the Atonement. As 
it is hardly supposable that the immutable attributes of the Deity 
should undergo alteration of any kind, the human nature would 
be the one affected by the commixture ; but the moment this 
change should take place the humanity would disappear as to its 
entirety, leaving behind certain portions only of its mutilated 
organism. Indeed, it does not seem clear but that as, on the one 
hand, the mutilated nature would be converted into something 
else by subtraction, so on the other, the absorbing essence would 
be converted into something other than itself by addition ; and 
that therefore the grand resultant would be a third somewhat, 
neither divine nor human. There is this to be said in behalf of the 
fusion theory, that it is difficult to imagine that even perfect, spot- 
less humanity could endure the unveiled presence of divinity, and 
that the incomparably greater is likely always to overshadow the 
less, and gradually mould it into a likeness unto itself; which is 
certainly truth, though not in the realistic sense in which its ad- 
vocates must be understood to speak. Perceiving the evil tend- 
encies of such a theory which are open to the view of any person 
who will devote a serious thought to the subject, and perceiving 
apparently that some such ideas lay latent in the Apollinarian 
heresy, the great Antiochene doctor, Theodore, who was after- 
wards bishop of Mopsuestia, took refuge in a theory which may 
be styled the Contradictory-opposite of the one he sought to sub- 
vert. In order to protest most effectually against the doctrine of 
one nature compounded out of two, he resorted to that theory 
which not only preserves the distinction of the two natures, but 
distinguishes also between the personalities. In this Cerinthus 
had been his forerunner, he teaching that the ^Eon Christ de- 
scended upon the man Jesus at His baptism, and left Him again 
prior to His crucifixion. Theodore certainly stopped much short 
of that blasphemy, for His preexistent being was no ^Eon, but the 
eternal, homobusian God, and, according to him, the union, taking 
place at the moment of conception, was to continue forever ; and 



152 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

yet his main thought, the separation of the personalities, might 
have been suggested to him by a perusal of Irengeus's exposition of 
the Cerinthian heresy. Allowing that the man Christ Jesus was 
not an individual being, since He was possessed of a double per- 
sonality, the next step is to determine the character of the con- 
nection between the two persons ; for some connection there most 
assuredly was. Conceivably it might be nothing more than that 
which exists when the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer. 
Theodore did not take that view of the union, but declared that 
it was higher and more perfect, while he insisted that it was not 
a personal one at all, but merely a friendly association, or at most 
one of affection and will. How such an explanation could be 
made to agree, for instance, with St. John's declaration that the 
" Word became flesh and dwelt among us," or how a valid atone- 
ment could be based upon such a union of friendship, the learned 
man never showed. Evidently, if God the Son was a separate 
individual from Jesus the son of Mary, then the son of Mary was 
a mere man, a pure and righteous man, but no more ; and conse- 
quently his death could no more have blotted out the transgres- 
sions of our fallen race than that of any other creature could have 
done. The Arian with a leaning towards orthodoxy would 
probably have to surmount fewer intellectual obstacles in ac- 
cepting the consubstantiality of the Son of God, were He under- 
stood to be united with the visible and mortal Christ only by the 
no-union of friendship ; but his adherence would be gained at the 
price of a subverted Faith, for the Christian religion can stand on 
no other basis than that of a genuine personal union, which con- 
stitutes the exalted being at once God, with no attribute lost, and 
man, with none of his qualities merged ; or what is called in tech- 
nical divinity the Hypostatical Union. 

This system of doctrine we have ascribed to Theodore of 
Mopsuestia, because he was really the originator thereof whether 
he actually held it himself in its entirety, or not. From him it 
was learned by Nestorius and Theodoret of Cyrus, the former 
becoming its great apostle upon his promotion to the see of Con- 
stantinople. Nestorius seems to have been a vain, impulsive man, 
lacking in self-control, though not devoid of talent, energy, and 
eloquence. There had followed him from Antioch a presbyter in 
whom he had chosen to put much confidence, Anastasius by name, 
who took occasion one day in a sermon to condemn an expression 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 153 

which was in vogue among the Catholics. Nestorius supported 
him, and created great excitement by delivering a course of ser- 
mons in which he trod the same path ; and was accused by Euse- 
bius of Dorylseum of reviving the ancient heresy broached by 
Paul of Samosata, who had taught, in the third century, that 
Christ was a mere man upon whom descended a certain divine 
influence which endowed him w T ith extraordinary gifts. The 
commotion soon extends its concentric waves across the sea, and 
arouses the impetuous Cyril, who is seen to leap up and bound 
forward with the joy of a charger who scents the battle. 

The term against which exception was taken had the sanction 
of Athanasius, most orthodox of men, of the two Gregories, and 
even of temporizing Eusebius Pamphilus, none of whom had 
scrupled to call the Virgin Mary Theotokos (tieordfcog), or Mother 
of God. He who should surmise that the approaching contest is 
to turn upon the honor due to the Blessed Yirgin would be guilty 
of mistaking Ephesus for Trent, and the fifth century for the six- 
teenth. It is true that the Church had never intermitted its deep 
respect towards her who was chosen for the exalted privilege of 
giving birth to the Lord of glory, had never forgotten the con- 
gratulatory tone of the angel Gabriel's salutation ; " Hail thou 
that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou 
among women ; " and had as far as time permitted verified her 
own prophecy, "From henceforth all generations shall call me 
blessed ; " and it is not to be denied that a growing reverence for 
the Yirgin-mother pervaded the ranks especially of the celibate 
clergy and the monks, whose natural affections, forbidden to dis- 
play themselves as the Creator designed, turned spontaneously 
towards any object that could even partially appease the yearn- 
ings of their hearts ; but it is certain that the Nestorian contro- 
versy did not hinge upon the question of duly honoring the 
Yirgin, but upon that of the Hypostatical Union. 

The phrase was a favorite one in Alexandria, where it was 
used against the Arians as an assertion of the full divinity of the 
Saviour. What was born of the Yirgin was the manhood : if, 
then, the Yirgin were called Mother of God, no better method 
could be devised of proclaiming that Christ was both man and 
God. ISTo one who used the term meant to declare that Mary 
gave birth to His Godhead, an idea both absurd and blasphemous ; 
but simply that, while she was distinctively the human parent of 



154 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

His humanity, that holy thing which was born of her was " Em- 
manuel," God with us, "Jehoshua," God our Saviour. It may 
be objected that, unless Mary was the mother of Christ's divinity, 
we ought not to call her the Mother of God. Those who adduce 
such an objection either forget what is signified by Personality, 
or else believe, with Theodore and Nestorius, that He was not a 
single, but a double, person. Of course, if the Lord had within 
Him two distinct individualities, as well as two separate substances, 
then what happened to one of the allied individuals did not affect 
the other, unless it happened also to Him : if the Son of God con- 
joined Himself with a preexistent (existing before the union) man, 
then the sufferings of the man were no more the sufferings of 
God, in strict propriety, than the hunger or fatigue of Jonathan 
was the hunger or fatigue of David. On the contrary, in the 
same way that the whole man is cold when his body is, or sleepy 
when his brain is, or penitent when his soul is, or angry when his 
heart is, just so the whole Christ, God and man, did whatever 
either nature did, or suffered whatever either nature suffered, and 
in general was affected by whatever touched either side of his 
duplex personality. Is this a quibble ? So, then, is it a quibble 
to say that whatever modifies in any degree one part of the body 
necessarily disturbs the whole. If you plough a man's back with 
a rawhide, do you not torture him f If you fill his stomach with 
an abundance of savory dishes, do you not feed him ? If the 
hangman breaks the spinal cord, do we say that he kills only the 
body ? If he does not kill the soul, he does kill the person whose 
the soul and body are. The grand principle, which is known as 
that of the Interchange of Attributes (Communicatio Idiomatum), 
is that that which can be predicated of either nature can be predi- 
cated, not of the other nature, but of the person who possesses 
them both and is made up of them both. Thus, when the Master 
lay in the hinder part of the storm-tossed bark, it would be im- 
proper to say that the Godhead or divine nature was asleep, but 
entirely consonant with the Scriptures to record that God was 
asleep, for such an expression does no violence to the fact, unless 
St. Paul erred when he spoke of the " Church of God which He 
hath purchased with His own blood." And now we have pierced 
to the marrow of the whole subject, since, unless God died for 
man, man is not saved. This was the very reason that the eter- 
nal and only -begotten Son of God dwelt in the virginal womb ; 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 155 

He thus humiliating Himself in order that He Himself, and no 
one else, might be capable of suffering and death. As the learned 
and pious Hooker teaches us, the infinite nature endured no 
intrinsic change whatever by the incarnation, neither was the 
human altered by His assuming it, only the latter was dignified 
and perfected by the union, and the former, though not lowered 
at all, acquired capacities far beneath it, such as those we have 
mentioned, which could be best obtained in that way. In fine, 
while no one would have committed the gross mistake of calling 
the blessed Virgin mother of the divine nature, the most rational, 
cautious, and orthodox might justly entitle her Mother of God, 
and might properly insist upon such phraseology as an excellent 
defense of the Unipersonality and of the Atonement, and per- 
emptorily reject the Nestorian substitute Christotokos, or Mother 
of Christ, as insufficient, and even as partaking of heresy when 
intended as a denial of the Theotokos. 

The controversy being now fairly kindled, the first step was 
that of an appeal by both parties to Celestine I., the bishop of 
Rome. It is almost amusing to observe the deference so skillfully 
manifested by the haughty prelate of Alexandria in his address to 
the great patriarch of the West. Cyril's conduct in the affair 
shows conclusively that he was perfectly capable of curbing his 
violent temper whenever his interest demanded of him that sacri- 
fice. Strange as such a reference may seem to us, it was most 
natural under the circumstances. A number of causes had united 
to raise the Roman bishop in the estimation of mankind, and to 
give him a very decided influence throughout the Christian world. 
The first of these was the preeminent importance of the city over 
which he ruled. It is impossible that great and concentrated com- 
munities, compacted within narrow limits, possessed of the usual 
facilities afforded by such condensation for interchange of the prod- 
ucts of mind, artistic skill, industry, and nature, should not rule 
the districts in which they are. It never has been otherwise, and 
never will be, so long as talent and genius flow as naturally 
towards such centres as the produce of market-gardens, of factories, 
and of broad and fertile acres tends irresistibly thitherward. As 
Rome, therefore, was the greatest city of all antiquity, her influence 
would be the widest and weightiest, her prestige remaining almost 
untarnished long after the Port of Ostia had begun to lament 
over the decreased shipping. Religious influence, being subject 



156 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

to the same general laws as any other species, would emanate in 
<equal degree from the great cities ; an assertion which is supported 
by the fact that the five patriarchates were ranked, in utter disregard 
of considerations which might be thought paramount, precisely 
in accordance with the importance of Rome, Constantinople, 
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. A second cause was that, 
when Maximian fled from the sturdy independence of the Senate 
and people of Rome, in order that he might inscribe himself Im- 
perator, in an absolute sense, upon the baths and public buildings 
with which he adorned Milan, and when Honorius ensconced him- 
self behind the impassable marshes of the Po, removing his cap- 
ital to Ravenna, they left the Bishop of the Seven-hilled City to 
gather around his own head all the traditional and actual glory of 
the world's metropolis. Every visitor who came thither, impelled 
by curiosity or lured by hope of profit, found the successor of St. 
Peter exacting more homage than had been willingly conceded to 
any Csesar or Augustus of all the long line. Whatever eye 
turned from the most distant province towards the ancient seat 
of empire, was caught at once by the brightness which had re- 
moved from the deserted residence of the Antonines to hover 
above the rising state of the episcopal palace. A third reason of 
the growing importance of that patriarchate was that it had none 
to dispute with it the allegiance of the "West; that while four 
rival patriarchates divided between them Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, 
and the remaining portions of the Greek-speaking empire, Rome 
was, as of old, queen of the whole vast, loyal Latin world from 
Carthage to Aries and Corduba. A fourth may be found in the 
circumstance that her isolated position had helped to keep her 
aloof from the undignified quarrels which had too often weakened 
and debased the ambitious potentates of the East. The fifth, and 
one of the most noteworthy, rests upon the undeniable excellence 
of many early occupants of the bishopric ; not that they were men 
of extraordinary ability, only that they were almost invariably 
characterized by respectable attainments, fair average endow- 
ments, and, above all, by unimpeached orthodoxy. While few of 
them had risen above mediocrity, scarcely any, perhaps none, had 
failed to reach it ; many had won the amaranthine crown of mar- 
tyrdom; and there was hardly an instance on record in which 
their voices had not, upon opportunity, been given clear and 
strong for that view of doctrine which has received the approval 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 157 

of the ages and been stamped as Catholic Truth. Cyril might, 
then, without ignominy, have honestly deferred to the judgment 
of the great Latin patriarch, who, as bishop of the world's metrop- 
olis, could properly claim the first place among his brother patri- 
archs, and, as successor of a long roll of worthy and orthodox 
witnesses to the Faith which was once delivered to the saints, 
might well challenge the attention of Christendom. 

Celestine responded to Cyril favorably, and even presumed to 
appoint him his delegate to execute the sentence of deposition 
pronounced against the patriarch Nestorius by himself and a 
Roman synod, to take effect in case he should not retract within 
ten days. John of Antioch and other Eastern bishops, in reply 
to letters which Cyril had sent to them, condemned the course 
which had been taken by the accused. At this stage of the pro- 
ceedings a royal mandate, issued jointly by the two monarchs, sum- 
moned a general council. 

With Yalentinian III., then emperor of the "West, we have little 
concern, but in Theodosius the Younger we are interested as the 
one under whose auspices the whole question of the Nestoriao 
controversy was argued by the parties thereto. The reader who 
is familiar with the history of James I. of England, will have little 
difficulty in forming an adequate conception of Theodosius II. 
Like the royal Stuart, this grandson of the great Theodosius was 
an exemplary, devout, scholarly man, little fitted for holding the 
helm of state ; an occupation for which he had little ability, and 
still less inclination. Fortunately for the dominion, the talents 
of the family had descended to Pulcheria, who for nearly forty 
years ruled in the name of her brother. There was no variance 
between the real and nominal sovereigns in regard to piety and 
orthodoxy, both being unswerving and enthusiastic in maintaining 
the Homoousion and the entire Catholic belief. However, it 
seems a just subject of regret that the reins of power were held in 
a hand slack enongh to permit the Alexandrian prelate to adopt 
such a domineering and violent course as would speedily have 
brought down upon him the mailed fist of a more vigorous ruler. 
We may conjecture that the sad scenes of Ephesus would never 
have occurred, had Constantine or the great Orthodox Emperor 
still held the throne on the other side of the Bosporus. 

A more convenient place could hardly have been chosen for the 
holding of the Third General Council than the city so famed for the 



158 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

worship of the goddess Diana. Lying among and upon the hills 
near the mouth of the Cayster, Ephesus was readily accessible 
from both of the great maritime emporiums, while, by means of 
the two great roads, running to Sardis and thence northeast 
towards the provinces on the Euxine, and to Magnesia, and from 
that city to either Syria or the far East, it could easily be reached 
by John of Antioch and the other Oriental dignitaries. Nestorius 
displayed his vain confidence by presenting himself on the ground 
more than a month earlier than the appointed time, which was 
Whitsuntide, a.d. 431. Cyril was careful to arrive promptly, 
bringing with him a large company of bishops and an imposing 
phalanx of followers. Memnon, who occupied the chair of Timo- 
thy, St. Paul's beloved son in the faith, gathered about him forty 
of his suffragans. Celestine was to be represented by two bishops 
and a presbyter. Theodoret, whose name now appears among 
the most noted leaders of the new heresy, was present from Cyrus. 
And Candidian, count of the domestics, was in the city, commis- 
sioned to act as a sort of chief of police. Two hundred bishops 
were already assembled, but John had not yet accomplished his 
thirty days' journey by land from the banks of the Orontes, though 
a letter from him had been received signifying his purpose to 
attend. As the patriarch of Constantinople was to be arraigned 
before the Council, the presidency, which would otherwise have 
been his, devolved upon Cyril as the next in order. His first act 
does not impress us with a sense of his fairness or of his regard 
for the requirements of courtesy. Although John of Antioch, 
with some fourteen bishops in his train, was known to be within 
a few days' journey, and notwithstanding that he had politely 
given written expression to his regret for his tardiness, Cyril, 
having too much reason to think that his brother of Antioch did 
not altogether coincide with him in his opinions, or at least did 
not altogether approve of his conduct, resolved, if possible, to 
hurry the whole matter through before the Syrians could inter- 
fere with his plans. Overriding the protests of nearly a third of 
the bishops, of Nestorius, and of the Imperial Legate, Cyril con- 
voked the Council on the 22d of June in the very church which, 
was supposed to have contained the mortal remains of St. Mary. 
That one day sufficed for the condemnation of Nestorianism and 
the deposition of Nestorius himself, his sentence being signed by 
one hundred and ninety-eight bishops. John, arriving on the 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 159 

fifth day, was much incensed by the disrespect that had been 
shown him, and shocked at the hastiness with which such impor- 
tant affairs had been transacted. With his own followers, and 
others who had joined his party, he held an opposition council, 
which received a report of the late proceedings from Candidian. 
It retaliated upon Cyril his own measures, condemning and 
deposing him and Memnon, but contenting itself with passing the 
gentler sentence, upon the rest of the two hundred, of excommu- 
nication till such time as they should consent to condemn the 
anathemas of Cyril and his Alexandrian synod. Both parties 
appealed to the court : however, with regard to the orthodox, it 
can hardly be said that they went any further than merely to ask 
imperial favor and countenance, for they absolutely declined to 
argue their case before the emperor, insisting that, the Council 
having spoken, the matter was res judicata, a thing determined. 
The commissioner made his report. On the 10th of July a sec- 
ond session was held, the Western deputies having arrived. 
These were warmly welcomed, and gave the approval of the Latin 
Church to the measures of Cyril. The bishops were obliged to 
endure the extreme heat and close confinement of Ephesus during 
the remainder of the summer : they passed the time in hurling 
anathemas, if not more substantial missiles, at each other's heads, 
and enacting scenes that among Christian men are only possible 
when the strongest passions of their natures are aroused in defense 
of a holy cause, which seems to them to be in deadly peril unless 
their arms hew down its assailants. The Alexandrian party, 
exulting in numerical superiority and in at least partial victory, 
was in no temper to make the conciliatory advances which it could 
so creditably and gracefully have offered ; while the Antiochene 
displayed an obstinacy not calculated to invite to such a step. 
Meanwhile the former was slowly winning the ascendency at Con- 
stantinople, overcoming soon the prepossession which Candidian's 
report must have created in any unprejudiced bosom against the 
precipitancy and harshness of its action. The principal agencies 
in working this change were, to speak honestly and plainly, 
fanaticism and bribery. For reasons already suggested, the 
monastic orders were eager partisans of the Theotokos. Upon 
the receipt at Constantinople of a letter containing an account of 
the proceedings in Ephesus, the monks rose in mass and marched 
to the palace, with a noted abbot as their chief spokesman. As an 



160 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

angry mob is not to be safely disregarded even by the most popu- 
lar and potent ruler, Dalmatius and bis fellow abbots were no 
despicable auxiliaries of Cyril and Memnon. But there is a force 
which may claim greater efficiency than even fanaticism, one 
which seldom fails, when judiciously and unsparingly applied, of 
removing every obstacle that can be interposed by custom, tra- 
dition, self-respect, fear, the spirit of justice, resoluteness, obstinacy, 
anything, in short, but firm religious principle supported by divine 
grace. If Cyril stooped to the free employment of money in buy- 
ing up influential persons about court, his success was assured 
before he made the first movement. One, however, did not need 
to be bought of those nearest the royal ear, for Pulcheria had 
taken offense at some act or speech of Nestorius. Finally the 
emperor prorogued the assembly, without definitely declaring in 
favor of either side, but suffered Cyril and Memnon to retain their 
sees, and Maximian to be consecrated patriarch of Constantinople. 
It is hardly possible to regard this council with complacency. 
The sight of holy fathers-in-God so demeaning themselves as to 
compel the civil power to interpose and incarcerate them, march- 
ing through the streets with bands of sailors, peasants, or monks 
at their heels, to fight over the sublimest dogmas of our holy re- 
ligion, adorning each other with such epithets as only ruffians use 
towards those who have incurred their hatred, and expending 
vast sums of money contributed to the Lord's treasury by the 
liberality of the faithful in purchasing court influence, is not an 
attractive one. Is it not possible that the dark pigment has been 
too lavishly employed in depicting the Council of Ephesus ? One 
incident looks that way, the difficulty found by Cyril and his ad- 
herents in getting their letter into Theodosius's hands. Why, we 
at once ask, if they could have so little to urge in their own de- 
fense, was Candidian so anxious to suppress the missive ? Why 
was it thought necessary at last to enclose the epistle in a hollow 
staff, and entrust it to a beggar? Was this an artful device, a 
mere feigning of duress? Into such questions we will not enter, 
for, let Cyril be as bad as fancy can paint him, he may neverthe- 
less have been on the right side, and have achieved a real victory 
for the truth, since evil men are sometimes right, and may as- 
suredly be used by their Creator as tools with which to work out 
His all-wise plans ; and let the council have been ever so unfair, 
irregular, ill-conducted, it may still have truly uttered the witness- 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESU8. 161 

ing voice of the Church, as long as the theory stands unshaken that 
the one thing which constitutes a council (Ecumenical is that its 
decisions should have been accepted by the Church at large. We 
are not obliged to maintain the justness of Xestorius's condemna- 
tion, nor the propriety of Cyril's anathemas, but may frankly confess 
that the accused was probably not guilty of the great aberrations 
from the faith which were laid to his charge ; and that his accuser 
manifested the extravagant malice of personal enmity rather than 
the reluctant indignation of one who seeks to reclaim and not to 
punish; and yet hold firmly to the authoritativeness of the Council 
{is to those points of fundamental doctrine upon which it did speak. 
There lias been no permanent gift of discerning spirits confided 
to the Church, nor is there any reason to think that the whole 
Church might not be mistaken as to the guilt or innocence of 
even the most widely known of all her sons ; there has been no 
promise made to her that she shall never adopt rules of discipline 
or forms of worship that are not the most advisable, so that it 
should be disloyal to believe that she has given her sanction to 
measures of ritual or discipline which a little foresight would 
have taught her to shun ; but there has been an assurance given 
her that she shall not err in vital doctrine, and in that respect, 
and that alone, we ought to confide implicitly in her determina- 
tions. Her function is to witness unto the truth, — not to make 
truth, scarcely even to reason about it, — but simply and chiefly to 
declare what it is, what was entrusted to her safe-keeping as the 
revealed truth of God. As long as she confines herself to bearing 
such testimony, she ought to be heard with the deference due to 
a divine oracle, though the instant she treads outside of this do- 
main we may claim to examine her action, and weigh her reasons. 
When the Council of Ephesus, witnessing to the truth of the 
Incarnation, sanctioned the use of the term Theotokos, it defined 
authoritatively the Catholic Faith, provided the Christian world 
should add its approval of the decision ; but when it condemned 
Nestorius as a heretic, it was exposed to the usual risks of a 
human tribunal, and may have pronounced a sentence wholly 
unjust even to that vain and arrogant prelate. 

The skeptic may amuse himself by slyly aiming the shafts of 
his ridicule at the Inspiration of such a synod, seeming to ask 
all the time that he is recounting the unseemly incidents of its 
sessions, Does this look as if God had much to do with the direct- 



162 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ing of these deliberations ? or, while he is dilating upon some of 
the wretched quarrels that filled up the time of the bishops' long 
sojourn, Are these the deeds of reverend prelates in whom dwells 
the plenary gift of the Holy Spirit ? Let us not be disturbed by 
such questions, whether they be the sneering objections of the 
scoffer, or the honest interrogatories of those who desire to obtain 
correct views of a matter not often understood. Undoubtedly, 
these men did possess no small share of God's grace. The official 
acts of Cyril, or Nestorius, or Memnon, or John were just as 
effective as though suspicion had never breathed upon their fame ; 
and if the men could convey the grace of regeneration, of conse- 
cration, and of ordination, why should they not be capable of 
accurately declaring what doctrine they had received from those 
who had gone before them ? With the instances of Balaam and 
Caiaphas staring us in the face, can we deny that the Almighty 
sometimes chooses to speak by the mouths of bad men ? Was 
not Judas an Apostle ? Let it, however, be clearly understood 
that the authoritativeness of the decisions does not depend upon 
any special inspiration residing in the individual members, or in 
all collectively, but upon the indwelling of the Holy Ghost within 
the entire Church. The inerrability was located in the corporate 
body; which was not assembled at Ephesus, but was scattered 
over the world, and was not involved in the disgraceful proceed- 
ings of the Council. The vast numbers of Christians who had 
remained at home, upon hearing with grief of the lamentable oc- 
currences at Ephesus, would be liberated by such intelligence 
from those feelings of reverential regard which would have power- 
fully influenced them to receive without close scrutiny the de- 
terminations of a large, learned, able, pious, and well-conducted 
assembly, and would be moved to examine with unusual care 
whatever was put forth for their acceptance. Therefore the very 
circumstances which are dwelt upon as undermining the authority 
of the Ephesian Council ought, perhaps, to be taken as placing 
the correctness of its action in condemning the doctrine of the 
two-fold personality upon the most immutable of bases. 

Separating without having reached a friendly understanding, 
the members carried with them back to their homes, to be dis- 
seminated among their flocks, the animosities which had blazed 
up so fiercely and burned on so relentlessly. Prompted by a 
desire to appease a strife injurious to the public welfare, and by 



THE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 163 

the pious hope of realizing the promise made to those who shall 
play the part of mediator, Theodosius nobly strove to reconcile 
the hostile parties, and at last had the reward of seeing the two 
leaders bury their weapons. The pacification was almost a com- 
plete triumph for Cyril, as he did little more than explain what 
he meant by certain phrases which he had used, while John actu- 
ally gave his approval to the condemnation of l^estorius and the 
ordination of Maxrmian. These concessions displeased both sides, 
Isidore of Pelusium taking Cyril to task, while Theodoret rebuked 
John for deserting the deposed bishops. However, by the assist- 
ance of the civil authority, the treaty, made in 433, was enforced, 
and unity was restored about two years later, the flames of dis- 
cord being smothered, at least, if not extinguished. 

Nestorianism itself did not die thus easily, but retreating to 
the eastern confines of the empire, found an asylum in the school 
of Edessa, Ibas, bishop and master, patronizing it, and greatly aid- 
ing its spread by the translation of some works of Diodorus of 
Tarsus and Theodore of Hopsuestia into Syriac. It is not to be 
supposed that this heresy was thoroughly suppressed in the East- 
ern empire by the adverse edicts of Theodosius : on the contrary, 
every province contained probably some congregations which 
refused to surrender their belief in the friendly union of the two 
personalities. Still, henceforth the heresy flourishes mainly in 
the far East, beyond the Euphrates. Edessa became a hot-bed for 
the nurture of missionaries, who covered Persia and Assyria. In 
the year 435, this school being temporarily disbanded by Pabula, 
its head, who was a strenuous advocate of the unipersonality, Bar- 
sumas, one of its members, retired to the celebrated city of JSTisibis, 
which had been the bulwark of the Roman imj)erium against the 
Persians till it was ingloriously ceded to Sapor by Jovian. Being 
bishop of that place, he became the foremost of the Nestorian 
leaders, secured for his sect the protection and favor of the Persian 
king, Pherozes, and obtained for it a thorough and firm establish- 
ment in his realm, with its patriarch (called by the name of Catho- 
lic) holding his seat in the twin cities, on opposite banks of the 
Tigris, Selencia and Ctesiphon. He also founded another semi- 
nary of devoted missionaries by erecting the important school at 
Nisibis. Feeling assured that the attachment of the Nestorians 
to their own sovereign had been forever destroyed by the harsh 
treatment they had received, the throne of Persia smiled upon 



164 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

them with peculiar benignity. Between this auspicious circum- 
stance and their own unbounded zeal and self-sacrifice, their creed 
was introduced everywhere with marvelous celerity and success, 
so that in the course of a few centuries it had spread into almost 
every corner of the vast Asiatic continent, and promised to subju- 
gate the many myriads of inhabitants which throng its various 
countries. Even the Celestial Empire in vain interposed the bar- 
rier of its exclusiveness against their onward march, and was in- 
vaded by them through the port of Canton. A khan of Tartary 
becomes, in truth or fable, converted by them into that notorious 
personage, Prester John, whose portable altar accompanied him 
in his marches. The ancient superstition of the Brahmins was 
almost as j)owerless to check their advance as Persian Magism had 
shown itself ; for when the Portuguese first pushed their advent- 
urous prows to the coast of Malabar, about the year 1500, they 
found there a flourishing community, calling themselves Christians 
of St. Thomas, and acknowledging allegiance to the Nestorian 
patriarch of Mosul. Whatever may have been the exact tenets of 
the man whom history has designated as their founder, the sect, 
after some disagreement between those who merely said that the 
nature of the union between the two persons was unknown and 
those who positively affirmed that it was nothing more than one 
of will and affection, speedily settled down into a final and com- 
plete adoption of the latter view. Not caring, it may be pre- 
sumed, to be known as the theological offspring of any man, these 
heretics rejected the name Nestorians, desiring to be spoken of as 
Chaldaic Christians. 

We may justly lament that so much ardent zeal and apostolic 
piety were lost to the true Church, and feel tenderly towards an 
error which was productive of so much good in bringing so many 
thousands out of heathen darkness into the partial light of their 
Christianity. We may even be tempted to think that a false doc- 
trine which has given birth to so much courage, love, and energy 
cannot be very inferior to the true ; and that we must be mis- 
taken in supposing that it is really hostile to belief in the Atone- 
ment, whereas it has preached Christ for many centuries with a 
zeal that rebukes the coldness of those who hold a purer faith. 
Let us, therefore, remember that the argument which proves 
Nestorianism as good as Catholicity just as easily shows that 
Buddhism or Mohammedanism, with their proselyting ardor and 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 165 

rapid spread, are as good as Christianity. If Nestorianism en- 
joyed a remarkable share of the divine blessing, was it not because, 
with creditable inconsistency, its advocates taught the Christian 
religion more correctly than they themselves held it ? Can we 
tell what would have been the results had the whole Church 
tacitly adopted the tenet of two persons in Christ \ Has not the 
sect been preserved by the unacknowledged and unsuspected 
influence of the Catholic Church from straying yet farther away 
from the truth i Instead of ridiculing the Fathers of Ephesus for 
stickling about a matter far too unimportant to justify them in 
driving 1 a large number of earnest Christians out of the fold, let us 
rather direct our strictures against the ungodly temper manifested 
by those who should have been to the flocks patterns of all the 
virtues. What might not a little exercising of forbearance, pa- 
tience, and self-control have effected in winning back such, as had 
begun to stray \ If, instead of flinging sharp missiles at each other, 
Cyril. Xestorius, and John had approached one another in the 
spirit of brotherly love, might not the whole dispute have ended 
at Ephesus forever ? Cyril and John at least appear to have been 
separated by very slight differences of opinion, and to have been 
kept apart mainly by official jealousy. Would that no bishops 
had ever lifted themselves above their peers to such a height of 
power and worldly magnificence ! Would that the Church of God 
had studiously kept aloof from all the allurements of earthly am- 
bition ! The wrong was not in valiantly or steadfastly maintain- 
ing the truth that in Christ our Lord exists only a single person 
composed of two natures, nor in insisting that all who hoped to 
enjoy the advantages of communion must accept this doctrine 
and profess it too, but in contending for it with arrogance, bitter- 
ness, contemptuousness, and injustice ; which crime perhaps lies at 
the doors of some of the staunchest and most orthodox champions 
of the Unipersonality. 

Xestorianism at last met an antagonist too powerful for it to 
vanquish. When the locusts of Mohammed swept like a plague 
over the Orient, many waving fields belonging to that religion 
were devoured by them. That terrible wind from the deserts of 
Arabia bore down many a stately cedar of Catholicity, and ex- 
posed the roots of many a tall palm of Chaldaic Christianity. The 
Saracens, it is true, far from persecuting the Xestorians, decidedly 
favored them above the Greeks, and allowed them to fix the seat 



166 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

of a patriarch at Bagdad and at Mosul ; but their conquest of 
Persia, and the gradual extension of their religion over the East, 
cast a blight upon Nestorianism, under which it gradually shrank 
and decayed. In the Nestorian of to-day, whether reconciled to 
the Patriarch of Rome or still acknowledging no allegiance except 
to his own Elijah or Simeon, or whatever name may be the offi- 
cial designation of his ecclesiastical superior, we would hardly 
recognize the ideal JSTestorian of a palmier day. 

The first three General Councils were called upon to defend 
the faith from attacks directed against that which had been 
revealed concerning the Son of God. The Second had also been 
obliged to protect the doctrine of the Third Person of the Holy 
and Undivided Trinity from presumptuous assailants. And now 
the Council of Ephesus was compelled to condemn another heresy, 
which corresponded to the Macedonian very much as Nestorian- 
ism answered to Apollinarianism, a heresy which, if it did not, 
like the Macedonian, directly concern the doctrine of the Holy 
Ghost, could not have been very remote from that subject, inas- 
much as it had regard to the universality, necessity, and nature 
of his working upon the human soul. 

Although the new teaching had its rise in the West, being in 
this particular quite remarkable, it did not originate with the 
Latin race, but was devised by a member of one of the tribes which 
inhabited the barbarous countries of Europe when Rome first 
advanced her eagles into the forests of Gaul and Germania. 
Morgan, transferred into Greek, becomes Pelagius ; and, meaning 
sea-born, may indicate that the possessor of the name drew his 
descent from ancestors who pushed their frail barks far out into 
the treacherous sea, and showed themselves at exposed places 
visitors as unexpected as they were unwelcome. Such was the 
name borne by a British monk who, about the beginning of the 
fifth century, forsook the great monastery of Bangor, or his own 
lonely cell, to mingle with the throngs of Rome. Finding in that 
refuge another waif, like himself drifted by the current from the 
farthest northwest and cast up upon the shore where flowed the 
" yellow Tiber," a native of Ireland, a genuine Celt, he admitted 
him into friendship and into an active copartnership in his theo- 
logical ventures. During the ten years or more spent by these 
two monks within the walls of Rome, Celestius had ample time and 



TEE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 167 

opportunity for learning the philosophical system of Pelagius, and 
suggesting such improvements as might seem advisable to a mind 
sharpened by the training and practice of an advocate. 

If Pelagius was not a fellow-countryman of Csssar and Cicero, 
that distinction cannot be denied a man who stands foremost 
among the divines of the Latin Church, to whom must be awarded 
the credit of at least partially redeeming Latin theology from the 
contempt to which it might otherwise have been assigned. The 
illustrious antagonist of the Briton was born at Thagaste, a town 
of Numidia, a. d. 354, of a heathen father, but of a mother 
equally remarkable, it would appear, as housewife and saint. 
Many advantages were lavished upon the youthful Augustine, 
who was sent to the schools of Madaura and Carthage. His 
father, finally brought over to the true faith by the influence of 
his exemplary wife, dying when the boy was about seventeen years 
of age, the assistance of a rich fellow-townsman enabled him to 
pursue his studies. The youth was not correct in his habits nor 
in his faith, committing the double crime of unfaithfulness to both 
the purity and the religion in which his pious mother must have 
trained him. At eighteen, though unmarried, he was the father 
of a boy, who afterwards accompanied him into the Church. It 
maybe thought strange that the reading of Cicero's " Hortensius " 
should have thrown the young man of nineteen years into Mani- 
chseism ; but so it happened, that work exciting a spiritual appe- 
tite which in his diseased condition the simplicity of the Bible 
failed to satisfy. For nearly a decade he remained a member of 
the abhorred and persecuted sect, but gradually contracted an in- 
tense disgust at the obscene and hypocritical practices of the 
"elect," and an inveterate dislike of the system which nurtured 
them. In 383, he sought a more agreeable field for the exercise 
of his talents as instructor in the same metropolis at which we 
left Pelagius and his coadjutor, and thence removed to Milan. In 
that favored and historic city he had the privilege of testing the 
justness of its great preacher's fame. The same mighty spirit which 
awed and subdued the monarch prevailed over the indifference and 
the prejudices of the dissolute rhetorician, becoming thus the ap- 
pointed instrument in the divine hands for proving the truth of those 
memorable words of an aged bishop to the tearful and supplicating 
parent, " It is impossible that the child of those tears should be 
lost." Monica rejoiced to number her son among the catechumens. 



168 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Slowly lie struggled upwards under the load of bad habits and 
cherished unbelief, till at last a voice came, or seemed to come, to 
him in an hour of extreme mental anguish, bidding him " Take 
up and read," and sending him to St. Paul's Epistles, which he 
happened to open at the appropriate passage : " Not in rioting and 
drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife 
and envying ; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not 
provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof." On the anni- 
versary of our Lord's sabbatical rest in the tomb, in the year 387, 
Augustine, his son, and his dearest friend, Alypius, knelt by the 
font at the feet of Milan's sainted Archbishop. Monica not long 
surviving this unspeakable triumph, her bereaved son remained in 
Home for more than a year longer, and then returned to Africa 
and his native place, where he passed some three years in purify- 
ing himself from the old taint by a life of religious retirement. 
There prevailing in those strange days the antiquated idea^ that 
the very best talent and most extensive knowledge should be 
consecrated to the work of saving souls, Augustine endeavored 
to shun the fate of Ambrose by immuring himself in seclusion, 
but in vain, for, happening in an unguarded moment to visit 
Hippo Regius, the inhabitants presented him against his will to 
the bishop, Valerius, for ordination. Thus he became a presbyter 
in the ancient seat of the Numidian kings ; which his renown 
would keep in the memories of men long after Masinissa and 
Jugurtha should have passed into oblivion. In order that Va- 
lerius, a Greek, might be relieved from the task of discoursing in 
the Latin language, with which he did not feel himself thoroughly 
familiar, the custom was introduced, before unheard of in Africa, 
that a presbyter should preach when the bishop was present, and 
Augustine addressed the people in his stead. At the end of four 
years another novelty was introduced, that of having two bishops 
in one city, — in direct opposition to the eighth canon of the First 
General Council, of the existence of which, however, information 
had probably not reached the Numidian Church, — and Augustine 
found himself assistant bishop over one of the most important 
sees of Northern Africa, which bis abilities soon brought into the 
greatest prominence. In this station he continued for thirty-five 
years, dying just too soon to throw the weight of his character 
into the scale of order at the Council of Ephesus, and, perhaps, 
act as an effectual check upon the overbearing and unscrupulous 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESVS. 169 

prelate of Alexandria. The leadership of the African Church being 
conceded to him, Augustine turned his influence to most excel- 
lent account in both the Donatist and the Pelagian controversies. 
Having given to the world in his " Confessions " a valuable record 
of his own spiritual history, in his " City of God " a monument 
to his fame more lasting than the hardest granite, and multitu- 
dinous works, expository, polemical, and other, which it is un- 
necessary to enumerate, he lay down to rest in 430, to await the 
consummation of the blessedness of the New Jerusalem, the true 
City of God ; leaving behind him a name which was to be almost 
the watch-word of a prolonged and bitter theological war, and to 
command respect from all schools of thought, and all varieties of 
sects. Yet does not our estimate of the Roman race hold good 
even in his case ? Who would think of comparing his learning 
with that of Gregory Nazianzen, or his argumentative power with 
that of Basil of Caesarea \ As for soundness of judgment, com- 
prehensiveness of view, and depth of penetration, must we not 
admit that, even though we should forget the other Gregories, 
Theodoret, Chrysostom, one man at least dwarfs him into insig- 
nificance, — one who took no partial glance at a single side of a 
subject, but examined all its several aspects, acknowledging their 
existence, even though he could not precisely account for that 
existence, — the incomparable Athanasius ? 

Both Augustine and Pelagius lacked what Athanasius had, 
whether the progress of intellectual science in his day permitted 
him to know the fact or not, a true philosophy, — that philosophy 
which is implied in all correct theological teaching, and has con- 
trolled the Church's pulpits and councils from the beginning. 
Augustine and his antagonist did not understand the law of 
polarity, but acted as men who, having discovered negative elec- 
tricity, should insist that all electricity must be negative. Arius 
and Sabellius had succeeded in penetrating the barriers which 
protect the opposite poles of the great doctrine of the Trinity, and 
wished to make men believe that they stood above the equator, 
and could see the entire surface of the globe as it swept beneath 
their feet. Pelagius and Augustine sailed away from each other, 
one towards free-will, the other towards absolute predestination, 
till they attained north and south latitudes, respectively, of at least 
70°, and then tried to persuade themselves that, because their 
adversary's ship had sunk so far out of their sight, it must have 



170 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

gone to the bottom with all on board. One man discovers the 
law of inertia, and insists that the planet must fly off at a tan- 
gent ; the other hits upon the law of gravitation, and takes the 
opposite position that the body must drop in a straight line to- 
wards the sun ; and both are equally wrong, as they will see if 
they trace out the actual course, and follow the huge and shining 
mass as it rolls along in a regular elliptical orbit, neither flying off 
only, nor rushing inward only, but doing both at once. What a 
pity it is that reasoners are so impatient to apply their logic ! If 
modern science should ever succeed in persuading them to restrain 
their ardor till they have taken careful observations of all related 
phenomena, it will have achieved enough to entitle it to the last- 
ing gratitude, to the loud plaudits, of all who love truth above 
victory. Man is like the planet, as a moment's observation ought 
to show any intelligent person : he can neither fly madly through 
space at the impulsion of his self-will, nor does he submit to be 
drawn in towards the eternal and infinite centre of all life by the 
overwhelming force of the everlasting design ; but he describes a 
path that is the resultant of these two forces. It will perhaps be 
objected that both parties would have admitted this. Perhaps 
they would ; but the charge is that, having a strong preference 
for one force, they magnified that force till it virtually extin- 
guished the other, instead of taking both into their calculations, 
and striving to compute accurately the amount of each. If they 
did not convert the elliptical orbit into a tangent or a radius, they 
certainly did change it into a parabola or a hyperbola, and whirled 
poor human nature among astonished worlds like a frantic comet 
instead of a quiet, orderly, sober planet. 

That man is free is a conviction imbedded in the lowest sub- 
stratum of our mental nature, and so utterly ineradicable that not 
all the vagaries of Indian, Arabian, or Grecian philosophy, not all 
the well-aimed blows of Augustine, Gottschalk, or John Calvin, 
nor all the speculations of those who make of a man nothing but 
a nature such as it has been constituted by inheritance and slightly 
modified by the circumstances of his particular life, have been able 
to displace it. The very individual who most vociferously pro- 
fesses himself a slave, shows conclusively in his actions and con- 
duct that he believes himself free. "Whatever may be the stress 
of circumstances, however powerful the temptation, to whatever 
degree the power of resistance may have been weakened by habitual 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 171 

indulgence, man does not consciously sin without being reproved 
by his own conscience. If physical coercion is used, or the indi- 
vidual is actually insane, or is possessed by devils, he is not mor- 
ally guilty of the wicked deed, nor does he experience the same 
reproaches from within ; or if the moral sense has been deadened 
by a long course in vice, he may not be sensible of the nature of 
his acts ; but in all those cases in which the man really and know- 
ingly offends against the law of right, he is thoroughly aware that 
the responsibility in the last instance rests upon him alone. Nor 
is the feeling that of mere shame, nor similar to it. The mental 
state of the one who has succumbed to temptation is very different 
from that of him who has been overcome by superior physical 
force : in the latter case the vanquished may labor under shame- 
facedness, but he does not bitterly reproach himself, nor feel that 
he is a vile thing which men ought to shun and Heaven disown. 
That a conviction of the nature described exists is undeniable : he 
who should reject it would degrade us into mere puppets dancing 
on wires, and incapacitate himself for drawing any line between 
the sane and the insane. A conviction firmly rooted in one per- 
son or in ten million may be erroneous, it is true ; but one which 
is indelible in all persons of all ages must be correct. Unless we 
so conclude, we cut away the ground from under our own feet, 
and leave ourselves without any knowledge whatsoever ; since it 
is no more certain that cause leads to effect or effect dances at- 
tendance upon cause, it is no more clear that we actually exist, 
than it is that we control our own actions. It may be replied that 
a patient recovering from typhoid fever, and stimulated by the 
joyful sense of renewed life throbbing through him with invigor- 
ating energy, may think that he can walk, whereas the effort to 
do so would result in distressing failure. "We are not arguing 
about isolated cases in which men listen to the whispers of hope, 
but about a deep, and settled, and universal belief which the strongest 
wind of the desert cannot rend, nor the earthquake overthrow, nor 
the fire consume, and to which the still, small voice of revelation 
addresses itself. And what need we care for argument in such a 
case ? The argument overthrows itself, and buries itself out of sight. 
It overthrows itself because it builds upon the judgment of Causal- 
ity, which can rest upon no other than this same basis, We believe 
in it, and therefore it must be true. It digs a pit into which its 
expiring carcass falls headlong, covering itself many feet deep 



172 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

with the debris it brings along with it, because it persuades those 
who will listen to attempt what they cannot do, because it assails 
the very ones to whom it should look for support, its own kith 
and kin. 

Yet, on the other hand, man is not free, and he knows it too. 
His actions are restrained within very narrow boundaries. If he 
is pleased to throw a stone, he can do so, but the projecting force 
cannot by his volition be increased beyond the limits of his mus- 
cular power, nor can he cause the projectile to describe any other 
than a parabolic curve. His capacities are such as the Creator 
allowed him (whether directly or indirectly, makes no difference), 
his character, happiness, and success are dependent upon circum- 
stances over which he has no control, and the inherited weakness 
of his nature renders it practically impossible for him to resist sin 
without supernatural aid. There is as much truth on this side as 
on the other. Let not man forget that he is mortal ! We venture 
to say that Plato knew the weakness of humanity, that Cato knew 
it as well as Cicero ; that Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Antoni- 
nus lamented it with bitter tears ; or at least that the first of this 
trio wept what the others deplored, — as far as such demonstrations 
are supposable in philosophers of the Stoic school. Revelation, 
probing the wound in order to heal it, removes all the bandages 
and wrappings, and displays to us all the ugliness of a sore full of 
corruption. The facts here, too, are clear enough and certain 
enough : man is what God made him, and too feeble and blind to 
walk without a helping hand; and the requisite assistance is, 
according to the testimony of Scripture, freely offered to every 
man who will ask for it; being even, in a certain measure, forced 
upon the unwilling, who cannot come to Christ unless God the 
Father draw them through the Spirit's agency. 

Who can reconcile these contradictory facts ? No one who has 
not a stronger intellect than that of Emmanuel Kant ; for the diffi- 
culty before us is that contained in his Third Antinomy. ]S r o wise 
person will even continue the effort he has begun after he has dis- 
covered that the real difficulty lies in the impossibility of compre- 
hending moral freedom, for he will see that he can no more hope 
to understand his own nature than a dog could reasonably expect 
to get above the canine nature, and look down into all its valleys 
and over all its ridges. We can most assuredly form an idea of 
freedom as it exists, but we cannot tell how it exists. Here lies 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 173 

the ultimate difficulty : God being good and all-knowing, and man 
being His creature, how was it possible for God so to fashion His 
creature that he could reject the good and choose the evil, con- 
sidering that He was the all-foreseeing Architect of the mind as 
surely as of the body, and must have known what kind of a dispo- 
sition and what degree of determination would belong to it ? If 
a machinist constructs an engine which runs badly, we properly 
find fault with him for incompetence or negligence, unless the 
defect was one which no skill nor diligence of mortal man could 
have discovered. How, then, can the most devout mind exonerate 
the Deity from blame for creating that which His infallible knowl- 
edge must have informed Him would work not only its own de- 
struction, but the ruin of many who should come within the circle 
of its pernicious influence? Is not this the same as asking why 
God did not fashion a machine instead of a morally free man ? No, 
because the man might be free to sin and yet never avail himself 
of that freedom, or if he did transgress, might confine his wander- 
ings within the limits of certain reclamation. Who does not see 
that this is a mere quibble? Who can repress a smile at the 
thought of a freedom possessed by countless millions, of which not 
one ever avails himself? Besides, this theory leaves the difficulty 
about as great as it found it, for it is equally impossible to under- 
stand how God could have made a person who was capable of 
sinning and must therefore, seemingly, have been imperfect, as one 
who in positive fact would commit wrong. What is freedom ? 
Let the answer be frank and full : We do not know, we never can 
know, and we convict ourselves of gross folly in trying to know. 
Is it, then, impossible that God, good and omniscient, should have 
formed a sinful creature? No one is in any condition to pro- 
nounce it impossible who is unable to prove that a creature cannot 
be made independent. Why are all the acts of that which is made 
necessarily traceable to the one who makes it? Why cannot 
something be formed which shall be capable of being left to its 
own guidance ? That is just what man is, if he is any better than 
cow and horse, a creature whom God has moulded into His own 
likeness, placed in a society of his fellows, and permitted to con- 
trol his own motions and pursue his own wishes and plans. The 
mystery of his moral freedom must be left unsolved, its solution 
unattempted save by the folly which under other education and 
circumstances would set up another Babel for the contempt of 



174 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

succeeding ages. One of the greatest advantages attending the 
possession of a powerful intellect is that it teaches where to halt, 
and so prevents the waste of time, exhaustion of strength, and 
bitterness of disappointment which result from misplaced effort to 
accomplish the impracticable. Perhaps, however, this wisdom 
comes rather from the good fortune of having a true philosophy 
than from mere strength of mind. Let us, then, be thankful that 
the Church has always instructed her children to accept the facts 
on both sides, not pushing them towards the extremities, but 
drawing them towards the centre, acknowledging the utter impossi- 
bility of thoroughly uniting them, and studying rather to observe 
these facts and deduce accurately the principles derivable from 
them, than to theorize brilliantly. 

Manichsean boldness cut the Gordian knot by deciding that 
evil emanates from a hostile divinity, an Almighty Satan, who 
loves sin for its own sake and because it is abhorrent to Him 
whom he hates, the Good God. By making this world the battle- 
ground of two nearly equal powers, that extraordinary religion 
reduced the controversy before us to very insignificant dimensions. 
In recoiling from the abominable tenets of that sect into which 
he had been lured, Augustine would naturally labor to show the 
needlessness of the hypothesis of an adverse deity, and to explain 
the existence of evil in a world created by one sole and righteous 
God. In his attempt he would be exposed to the hazard of mag- 
nifying unduly the part which God is pleased to assume in govern- 
ing the affairs of man, and seems to have actually gone the length 
of treating faith, the mental act by which man grasps the proffered 
salvation, as the result of God's grace working irresistibly upon 
the soul. Such teaching is very susceptible of gross perversion in 
the hands of the indolent, the worldly, and the profligate, who 
are glad enough to throw off the blame of their misdeeds and 
negligences upon Divine Providence. To how great an extent 
such pleas were used at Pome we cannot at this distance of time 
be certain, but may easily credit the assertion that Pelagius's 
indignation was kindled by what he heard of this kind against 
the wretches whose ingratitude towards their Father in Heaven 
permitted them to seek shelter behind such a miserable excuse, 
and also against the doctrine which countenanced such conduct. 
He vehemently insisted that the sinner commits his own sin, and 
has himself to blame for both it and its dire consequences. 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 175 

However, the allied monks did not commence the real work of 
spreading their belief till after Alaric had marched his Gothic 
hordes into the streets of Rome and given the ancient city over to 
carnage, rapine, and plunder. In 410 they fled to Africa, where 
Celestius involved himself in trouble by seeking ordination at 
Carthage, being opposed by Paulinus, who, from having been a 
deacon at Milan, was probably to some extent acquainted with 
his peculiar ideas. He was accused of holding erroneous views 
concerning original sin, regeneration, and perfectibility, was tried 
before a synod which assembled at Carthage in 412, condemned, 
and excommunicated. An appeal which he made to the bishop 
of Rome being utterly disregarded, he shook from his feet the 
dust of Africa, and sought a more salubrious atmosphere among 
the mobile Orientals, making his home at Ephesus. Pelagius had 
preceded him in his eastward flight, and taken up his residence in 
Palestine, there encountering the famous Jerome, who from a 
friend soon became his bitter antagonist. But Pelagius did not 
thus easily elude ill-report, for he was forthwith opposed by a 
young presbyter from the country of Hosius, whom Augustine 
had recommended to Jerome of Stridon, that learned, voluminous, 
and vindictive writer, who so bitterly denounced Origenism, was 
the means of introducing Greek learning into the West, encour- 
aged monkery, and strove to put down the new heresy that was 
being imported into a field already too thickly sown with them. 
Unfortunately, the delegate of Augustine and Jerome, who per- 
haps did not care to engage personally in the suit, this Orosius, 
did not understand Greek. John of Jerusalem and his synod 
therefore readily consented that the trial should be transferred to 
a court of more competent jurisdiction, that of Pome, prohibiting 
the heresiarch in the meantime from proclaiming his doctrines. 
Other accusers soon afterward appearing in the persons of two 
Gaulish bishops of doubtful reputation, Pelagius was summoned 
in the same year (415) before another synod, which was held by 
Eulogius, metropolitan of Csesarea, at the town which had for- 
merly been called by the familiar name of Lydda. On this 
occasion, owing to the absence of the complainants, Pelagius 
contrived to purge himself of the fault laid to his charge, 
and obtained an acquittal, which, however, was not of much 
intrinsic value, as being no more than an ex parte decision of an 
uninformed tribunal. For its leniency this council of Diospolis 



176 TEE CHUECH AND THE FAITH. 

(Lydda) received from Jerome the abusive epithet of "Miserable 
synod." 

Zosimus, bishop of Rome, now appears upon the scene, hold- 
ing a synod at which the art of Celestius wins over the partial 
Greek to his side of the dispute, and then addressing a letter full 
of reproof and unwarrantable assumption to the African Church, 
commanding that the accusers should come to Rome within two 
months, or else that the charges should be dropped. Aurelius of 
Carthage, in nowise intimidated, held two numerously attended 
councils, and with the approbation of more than two hundred 
bishops, calmly replied in substance that the African Church was 
independent and entirely able to take care of her own affairs, with- 
out the assistance of her Romish sister, and that the two heretics, 
Pelagius and Celestius, must stand condemned until such time as 
they should retract their errors. Moreover, they thought fit to 
retort upon Zosimus that he, and not they, had been hasty and 
credulous in listening to the unsupported assertions of biased per- 
sons. Instead of flying into a stage passion and metaphorically 
tearing his hair in the fury and imbecility of his rage, Zosimus, 
influenced doubtless by the fact that the civil sword had been 
unsheathed against the two promulgators of false doctrine in an 
imperial rescript of Theodosius, turned completely around, con- 
demned those men himself in very strong language, and not only 
adopted the decisions of the African synods, but required them to 
be signed by all who occupied the episcopal seat. As nineteen 
Italian bishops could not endure this test of orthodoxy, and were 
consequently deposed, it surprises us that they did not organize 
into a sect, especially as among their number was Julian of 
Eclanum, a man of ability and prominence sufficient to have 
marked him out as a leader. Fortunately, such was not the case, 
and after carrying on the controversy with the orthodox, whom 
they stigmatized as Traducianists and Manichmans, till the 
Council of Ephesus branded their opinions as heretical along with 
those of JSTestorius, Pelagius and his party sink out of sight. 

The nearest approach to the formation of a distinct sect was 
made by a monk who, emigrating from the East to France, estab- 
lished a monastery at Marseilles some time about 410 a. d. He 
held views similar to those of Pelagius, but less extreme, and 
succeeded in making them popular in Gaul, notwithstanding the 
well-directed opposition offered by Hilary of Aries and Prosper 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHE8US. 177 

of Aquitain, who also enlisted the efforts of Augustine on their 
side. The disciples of John Cassianus became very numerous in 
the course of a century, and were known as Massilians, from the 
city which was their headquarters, though they have since been 
appropriately styled Semipelagians. One of the most noted up- 
holders of his opinions was Faustus, who was transferred from 
the abbacy of Lerins to the bishopric of Riez. So important 
was a work, written by him at the request of a synod of Aries, in 
confutation of certain high predestinarian views held by the 
Gallic Church, that another synod, of Lyons, requested him to 
continue it. His books were condemned not long after his decease 
by Pope Gelasius. Whether the vast majority of those who ad- 
hered to his teachings were Pelagians, in any sense, may well be 
doubted : striving to avoid the Scylla and Charybdis of Pelagian- 
ism and Predestinarianism, they probably overlooked the minor 
errors of John Cassianus, and mistook him for a genuine Catholic, 
as, indeed, he almost seems to have been. However, men of un- 
usual penetration, like Csesarius of Aries, discovered the lurking 
danger, and disclosed it to the imperiled flock. In 529, this 
metropolitan turned the tide permanently by effecting a condem- 
nation of whatever was erroneous in the Semipelagian doctrines 
by a council held at Orange. Similar measures being taken by a 
council which sat at Valencia about the same date, and the joint 
decision being ratified by Pope Boniface II. almost immediately, 
the West had thoroughly committed itself to the disapproval of 
this mild type of Pelagianism, which, however it may have flour- 
ished in secret, thenceforth shunned the light of day. 

To the self-contained and haughty-spirited Pelagianism no 
less commended itself, by the value and dignity it ascribed to 
man's own efforts, than the doctrine of Augustine, by throwing 
back the main responsibility for human actions upon the Creator, 
rendered itself acceptable to the dissolute and the idle. In re- 
coiling from abject servitude, Pelagius leaped into a godless in- 
dependence. In striving to shield men from opinions which 
remove all incentive to exertion, and leave them an easy prey to 
the demons of luxuriousness and sensual indulgence, he delivered 
them over, bound hand and foot, to the fiend of spiritual pride. 
If Augustine had obliterated liberty, was it necessary for him to 
wipe out grace from his scheme of doctrine ? When that learned 
father forgot himself so far as to teach that in saving faith itself 



178 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

exists nothing of man's own volition, would it not have been 
opposition of a sufficiently emphatic character to have answered 
that man does have some share in the formation within him of 
that virtue, without claiming that he has all the merit of its exist- 
ence, God having nothing whatsoever to do with the matter ? But 
the Briton did not stop short of the farthest extreme. He taught 
that in his natural state man possesses the power of choosing the 
good, and of persistently and successfully following it. Inasmuch 
as God made him, he owes to God originally the capacity of 
choice, and the power of execution : there, however, his indebted- 
ness ceases, for, all persons being endowed w T ith sufficient capabili- 
ties, they are then left very much to themselves, to survive or per- 
ish as they themselves choose. If the Holy Spirit of God has 
any influence upon the spiritual organism of the creature, His 
function is only to make the attainment of holiness easier : His 
office is not a necessary one at all, for the child of Adam is com- 
petent to break off from a long course of sinful indulgence, curb 
all his unruly passions, walk unscathed through the seven-times- 
heated furnace of temptations to which he has habitually yielded, 
and which are now sharpened by short abstinence, preserve un- 
spotted henceforth his integrity and purity, and accomplish all 
this by the unaided might of his own determined purpose. In- 
deed, so complete is his power in these respects, that he can afford 
to dispense with all the outward means of spiritual improvement. 
He can walk uprightly from the inhaling of the first breath into 
his unaccustomed lungs, not so much as once striking his foot 
against hidden root or unsuspected stone. He has even lived in 
perfect righteousness without knowledge of revealed religion, 
guiding himself by the glimmer of reason's dim torch. It is to 
be seen that, according to this system, man saves himself by his 
own strong arm : he converts himself whenever it suits his con- 
venience to do so, believes of his own motion entirely, and pro- 
ceeds to perform good works by his own strength. The part 
allotted to God seems to have been little more than that of wiping 
out all his sins at his baptism, which sacrament was held to leave 
him without sin. 

Augustine taught the contrary to all this, which must have 
seemed to him, as it does to us, grossly profane. According to 
him, man cannot repent, nor even wish to repent, until God puts 
the desire into his heart, which desire, once implanted, He care- 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 179 

fully guards and cultivates through all stages of its growth, until 
it safely buds, blossoms, and bears fruit unto eternal life. Why, 
then, are not all men good? Because God does not plant, and 
water, and give the increase. But why does He not, since He is 
merciful, all-powerful, and incapable of fatigue ? Because it has 
pleased Him to choose a particular few upon whom to bestow the 
priceless blessing of election to glory. Selecting a certain num- 
ber, without regard to foreseen ability, or goodness, or anything 
save His arbitrary (may we be forgiven the term) pleasure, by a 
decree which antedates the foundation of the world, He accom- 
plishes their rescue by instrumentalities which neither themselves, 
nor any adverse chance, nor the machinations of the Evil One can 
thwart. But why does not the All-merciful will the salvation of 
all His creatures ? If He can deliver whomsoever He chooses from 
everlasting burnings, from the gnawings of the worm that does 
not die, from the foulness, and wretchedness, and degradation of a 
life of sin, is He not bound (we cannot avoid the language) to do 
so by every consideration of equity and compassion ? The human 
heart can be trusted to give one only and unvarying response to 
such interrogation, unless it is steeled by the stern demands of a 
false consistency. What answer Augustine gave, drawn from the 
absolute right of a Creator over His creatures to do with them 
what He wishes, need not be dwelt upon here, for we may assure 
ourselves that it was never satisfactory even to him, but was em- 
ployed as a mere make-shift in default of a better. His large heart 
shrank aghast from the horrible idea that the God of Love could 
have predestinated any to unutterable and inevitable woe, but did 
he not perceive that it is just as cruel to leave them to their destruc- 
tion by simply refraining from interference, when a mere effort 
(so to speak) of the Eternal Mind would snatch them from ruin ? 
If I see my neighbor floundering in the sea and neglect to toss 
him the end of a rope which lies coiled at my feet, am I much less 
his murderer than if my own hand had pushed him overboard \ 
How can we justify God in this matter otherwise than by assum- 
ing the position that He cannot extend His hand to rescue the 
perishing? Is it asked, How can anything be impossible with 
God ? We reply that inconsistencies are impossible, and that it is 
an utter inconsistency to talk of saving &free moral ueing in spite 
of himself. God certainly can sweep all men, good and bad, into 
heaven, but he cannot forcibly pluck them out of their own vile- 



180 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ness without destroying their identity and making them over 
again. 

Against both of these schemes the protests of Reason are about 
equally strong. Its own instincts rise indignant against a theory 
which robs it of all power and independence, degrading it to an 
instrument which turns this way or that as the strings are pulled ; 
while it feels at once the hollowness of a notion that makes man 
a little deity in himself, not self-created, it is true, but in the main 
self-sustained, self-controlled, scaling the skies with the ladder of 
his virtuous acts, and practically disregardful of a Creator who has 
retired from His self-moved universe, which He views in the 
serenity of placid contemplation, seldom rousing Himself to the 
effort of interposition. It refuses to be a slave, and knows that it 
ought not to desire the licentious freedom of a savage. What 
sanction it may seem to yield to either theory is wholly illusory, 
extorted from it by the pressure of violence, actual or threatened. 
Now, when two persons jointly labor to accomplish a given object, 
one need not be the slave of the other, even though such may be 
the ignorance and unskillfulness of the one that he cannot safely 
undertake the smallest particular of the work without specific in- 
structions from the other. A willing man, who is ordinarily intel- 
ligent, could make himself very useful as an assistant to a mason 
or a carpenter, though wholly ignorant of the trade: in such a 
case the man is not a tool, nor is he able to labor independently. 
Does the incalculable superiority of Almighty God interpose an 
insuperable obstacle to cooperation between Him, in His infinite 
power and awful majesty, and man in his weakness and humbleness ? 
If so, then man can no more invent a reaping-machine, or put that 
machine in operation, than he can perform a virtuous act ; for either 
God' helps man in what he does, or not; if God does sustain the 
natural life of the inventor, and the functional action of the brain, 
while he is taxing his resources to perfect his invention, then God 
assists him in the task, — unless, indeed, the man is an automaton, 
wound up by supernatural power to exert this particular effort of 
imaginary ingenuity. When we have allowed that God and man 
unite in doing whatever man does, we have certainly admitted the 
possibility of cooperation between the finite and the infinite, and 
removed the above-stated objection, unless there can be adduced 
some special reasons why a cooperation which extends through the 
whole kingdom of nature should be excluded from the kingdom 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 181 

of grace. This hypothesis, so thoroughly satisfactory to reason, 
also readily explains all the texts of Scripture which bear upon 
the subject, the Bible always representing God's grace and man's 
free effort as necessary factors in the great result of salvation ; not 
that no passages exist which ignore the one in order to give em- 
phasis to the other factor, but that the texts of this sort on one side 
are balanced by equally emphatic ones on the other, and that the 
general scope of the Inspired Yolume, and of each separate book 
therein contained, is to show that God saves His fallen creature, 
and yet that the creature must save himself. Is this a paradox ? 
It is one of the commonest paradoxes of common life. The patient 
lies at the point of death, prostrated by the subtile and deadly in- 
fluence of malaria, and delirious from the poison which typhoid 
fever sends through the system. Careful nursing and skillful 
medical treatment succeed in breaking the force of the disease and 
setting the sufferer upon the high-road to recovery. With the im- 
patience of an untrained nature, the sick man yields to the crav- 
ings of an inordinate appetite, or rashly exposes himself to a cur- 
rent of air, and reaps the harvest he ought to have expected from 
his imprudence. Those whose fond eyes so sadly watch the fair 
promise of renewed health wither and perish, hardly need to be 
told that physician and patient must work together, in order that 
the hope of a complete and permanent recovery should be realized. 
The physician is God. God begins the work of healing the moment 
the diseased son of Adam is born into the world, and continues it 
to the end. As soon as the moral nature awakes to a sense of its 
own existence, the Great Physician begins to administer antidotes 
to the venom infused by the Old Serpent into our great progenitor, 
and from him transmitted by inheritance. He, unsuspectedly act- 
ing upon the hearts of pagan and unconverted Christian, draws 
them towards Himself; should they desire to repent, He causes 
them to realize vividly their own sinfulness ; should they look up 
to the Crucified One with a single spark of gratitude and trust, He 
fans it into the flame of genuine Faith; and then, as they walk 
along the pathway of life, born anew into the Church and fed 
with the bread of Heaven, He assists every effort of theirs, warns 
against danger, incites to increased effort, arouses from lethargy, 
enlightens, guides, comforts, and protects them. Thus does God 
cooperate at every stage of growth in virtue and holiness ; but it 
is only a cooperation, not at all a taking of the task out of the 



182 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

man's own hands. If God originally moves towards virtue and 
piety, the sinner must voluntarily rise up and walk in that direc- 
tion, and may not sit still waiting for the -Divine energy to set 
him upon his feet, lest he should wait forever. Whatever may be 
the efficacy of the softening reagent applied to his stony heart by 
the Holy Spirit, Repentance and Faith are utterly impossible 
except as positive acts of the struggling, but resolute, will of a 
free man. Should the grace of God, when once fully admitted 
into the human soul, so thoroughly take possession of it as abso- 
lutely to control its motions, the life of the Christian would not be 
one of probation at all, but a mere process of quiet maturing. 
From the first sob to the last groan man is a fellow-worker with 
God in achieving the victory over sin, Satan, and death ; capable 
of doing no good act without the assistance of Divine grace ; but 
doing the acts himself, notwithstanding, not as a steam-engine 
rushes along, impelled by the hand at the levers, but as a being 
who can do or not do, resolve or forbear to resolve, love or hate, 
very much as he is pleased to prefer. 

This we believe to be the doctrine which fulfills Yincent's rule 
of having been held always, everywhere, and by all as the Catho- 
lic Faith, and are also persuaded that its reasonableness is so great 
that the mere statement of it must prove convincing to any unpre- 
occupied mind. Semipelaganism hardly differed from it essentially 
except in the one particular of maintaining that it lies within the 
compass of mortal ability to come without being specifically called. 
It looked upon God as the Saviour of the willing, but also as the 
recipient of the eager and anxious, and sometimes as the rescuer 
of the unwilling ; thus oscillating now towards Pelagianism and 
now towards Augustinism, instead of preserving the steady course 
of the true doctrine. It taught that the large majority of men are 
saved by the action of the Holy Spirit upon responsive hearts ; but 
that in a few instances, forbearing to anticipate the prodigal's re- 
turn by the outpouring of preventing grace which makes that 
return possible, he awaits, as it were, the sight of his approaching 
form ; and in others actually breaks down the wanderer's opposi- 
tion and conveys him forcibly into a position of safety. This and 
the Catholic doctrine being so similar in all points, perhaps, with 
the exception of that just mentioned, it is not very strange that 
they should have been mistaken for each other. "Writers of church 
history seem to speak as though the Church in those days was 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 183 

divided into three parties, Augustinians, Pelagians, and Semi- 
pelagians, whereas the fact is, — as may plainly be discerned in the 
narratives of those historians, if not in the accompanying discus- 
sions, — that Augustine, Pelagius, and John Cassianus drifted off in 
various directions from the vast mass of Christians, drawing a few 
followers after them, but leaving the remainder apparently undi- 
minished, and not very greatly disturbed by their erratic move- 
ments. 

It may be thought that somewhat more of ceremony should be 
shown in our treatment of the worthy bishop of Hippo, but, loyal 
and generally orthodox as that learned Father undoubtedly was, 
it may, with more justice still, be thought by others that the at- 
tempts so repeatedly made to explain away the extreme predesti- 
narianism of his views have not been signally successful. How- 
ever, the respect in which he is universally held demands that one 
great argument, which is almost always urged by his defenders, 
and really has force with a large class of minds, should be briefly 
touched upon. This is built upon Foreknowledge : if God knows 
beforehand everything that is to happen, the ground of the fore- 
knowledge must be that He has decreed everything that shall 
occur ; for if He has not ordained future events, how can He fore- 
tell them ? As must be apparent, the whole rests upon the as- 
sumption that the All-wise foreknows all events that are to happen, 
without limitation. Is that a proper postulate ? No one is likely 
to deny that God does foresee, ages previous to their date, the 
mighty revolutions which convulse our planet, and even minute 
events in the lives of individuals; but must we admit, without 
proof, that the Creator foreknows precisely how a moral agent will 
decide and act under any given circumstances ? The Bible, we 
are confident, may be searched in vain, from cover to cover, for 
the assertion of any such thing. May not the divine power of 
foresight be like the human, only infinitely more perfect % With 
close observation of a fellow-creature's disposition and thorough 
acquaintance with the circumstances in which he is to be put, a 
shrewd man, conversant with the different phases of human life, can 
predict with some accuracy the course he will pursue. Penetrat- 
ing into the inmost heart, as Jesus' eye read the secrets of those 
with whom He conversed in the days of His flesh, God can hardly 
be mistaken in any judgment He may form regarding His creat- 
ure's action. Let us not positively affirm that the Divine Mind 



184 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

cannot foreknow with certainty how every man will act under 
every circumstance of his career, but let us remember that no such 
belief is exacted of us. If any one's intellect finds great difficulty 
in conceiving it possible that we should be free to choose or reject, 
and yet that it should be known countless ages beforehand whether 
we will choose or whether we will reject, let him reflect that no 
obligation rests upon us to extend the divine prescience to such a 
length. We decline to permit any one to dogmatize so far as to 
assume such a premiss, and at the same time recollect that we 
ought not to dogmatize in the opposite direction ourselves. ^Nor 
is this theory advanced for any other purpose than to afford an 
escape to such as have been driven to Predestinationism by the 
difficulties which surround Freedom of Will. For ourselves we 
very much prefer to believe that, in some way to us incompre- 
hensible, the All-seeing Eye reads each of us as an open page with 
infallible knowledge of our future. We see no sufficient objection 
against such a theory, no adequate reason why our freedom may 
not be absolute, and yet infinite Wisdom be able to foretell how 
that freedom will be exercised. I sit upon the sea-shore watching 
the slowly receding tide, hail a passing fisherman to ask how much 
longer the ebb will continue, and am told in reply that the flood 
will begin at such an hour. I have little doubt that the event 
will correspond with the prediction, but it never enters my mind 
to think that the one who gave the information has anything to 
do with the flowing of the waters. Does it make any difference 
that God's prophecies are absolutely reliable, that He created all 
things, gave laws to all things, and set all things in motion 1 Yes, 
a very great difference, if all things move only as they are moved ; 
but if there exist aught which is self-moved, aught which is free to 
choose its own course, a morally free being, millions of responsible 
beings, then the case is very much the same as that supposed, and 
God may conceivably foreknow without foreordaining, foreknow 
what one man or all men will do, and yet leave him or them at 
liberty to do or not do as they see fit, sure that the event will not 
falsify the prophecy. We do not say with the irate Briton, " What 
is Augustine to me ? " but we do take permission to weigh the 
opinions of even such a great and holy man. So glorious a name 
shall not blind us to errors which we suppose ourselves to have 
detected in his system, nor prevent us from pointing these out 
unreservedly to others. 



TEE COUNCIL OF EPEESUS. 185 

Both Pelagians and Predestinarians, recognizing the indubi- 
table truth that large numbers of people are sinful, — weak and 
erring, if not positively vicious, — sought to explain the natural and 
powerful tendency that exists in all towards disobedience, in such 
a way as not to unite with the Manichseans in impugning the 
goodness of the Creator. Thus the discussion was carried up to 
the primal man. Adam, according to Pelagius, w T as in no respect 
superior to his descendants, and was not even exempted from the 
common fate of mortals, being subject to death even before he 
sinned ; while, in St. Augustine's theory, which as to this corre- 
sponded with the orthodox doctrine, our common father was far 
more perfect than we are, physically as well as morally, and, had 
he exerted the ability he possessed of abstaining from sin, would 
have been translated to Heaven and transformed into the excel- 
lence of glorified humanity without stooping to the painful and 
humiliating process of dying. Diverging thus markedly at their 
very sources, the two theories flow through channels which sepa- 
rate more widely the farther one descends them from the fountain- 
head. If Adam was no better than his children have been, then 
his sin is not the cause of theirs ; but if the transgression of Adam 
was the fall from purity and righteousness of the forefather of our 
race, then his crime and its consequences must infect his offspring 
more or less. Pelagius maintained that there is no connection 
between Adam's sin and those of his descendants, except so far 
as that his conduct was a bad example, inviting the imitation of 
posterity : the followers of Augustine, if not that saint himself, 
held the theory of a mysterious transmission of the taint through 
all generations of men, and even went so far as to impute sinful- 
ness to all on account of this inherited tendency. In attempting 
to form an opinion on this difficult subject, we may w T ell com- 
mence w T ith a study of the laws of inheritance in general, and may 
expect great help from the investigations made in quite modern 
times for the purpose of discovering and establishing these laws. 
We are in a better position to undertake such a task than men 
ever were before. The experiments of stock-breeders alone ought 
to be sufficient to satisfy any reasonable person that characteristics 
are not only transmitted from parents to their offspring, but in- 
tensified and rendered durable to such an extent as decidedly and 
permanently to modify the species, under certain circumstances 
and within certain limits. The attention that has been paid to 



186 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ethnology and kindred branches in late years, has discovered that 
men are scarcely less subject to these laws than the brute creation, 
a truth which common observation readily discerns in the differ- 
ent families resident in any given neighborhood, recognizing with 
facility the distinguishing features and mental peculiarities of 
each. If necessary, the criminal calendar may be put into requi- 
sition also, to show that crime runs in families, some families being 
notoriously thievish for three or four generations, others murder- 
ous, still others profligate, and all probably continuing to display 
these deplorable family traits until the race has died out. This 
view does not lack Scriptural corroboration, — as is sufficiently 
well-known, — but must not be pressed too far. Man inherits 
nothing more than a tendency to sin. If this inclination is irre- 
sistible, then the victim of it is not chargeable with the guilt of 
the offenses to which it leads, unless a sepoy shot from the English 
guns was responsible for the slaughter of the man against whom 
the powder hurled him. Distinctly let it be affirmed that if a 
man is born with an unconquerable appetite for liquor, we will 
say, he is no more responsible for becoming a drunkard than he 
would be were he seized, and bound, and the alcohol poured down 
his throat. The appetite may be immensely strong by hereditary 
predisposition, and the individual remain a responsible agent; but 
once the line is passed that renders the force of temptation insur- 
mountable, the unfortunate being becomes insane, and of course 
not answerable for what he does. This is the "first limitation. 
The second is that the disposition to commit sin must not be 
accounted sin. It is beyond measure astonishing that any one 
should ever have been found so unreasonable as to believe that an 
inherited tendency could be imputed against infant or adult as 
sin. Just as properly could we reproach a cripple for being bom 
with a crooked leg, or rebuke those unfortunate children who are 
born with weak lungs, feeble eyes, or defective circulation, because 
they are not sounder. Here lies a wretched sufferer who has 
hardly known a comfortable hour since birth. One of your stern 
theorizers approaches the bedside and commences his diatribe: 
"You wicked, lost wretch ! Why are you lying idle there with a 
whole world going to destruction % Why do you not go forth and 
bear your part manfully in the great struggle ? What right have 
you to be indulging yourself in sickness and misery ? You are 
very much to blame for being in such a helpless condition : it is 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESU8. 187 

true that you cannot change it, that you came into it without so 
much as having given your consent, and that you would gladly 
be well ; and it is true that the whole fault is chargeable upon the 
criminal weakness, or scarcely more pardonable ignorance, of your 
parents in marrying contrary to the laws of God and nature ; but, 
however that may be, you are their child, and are responsible for 
their fault, your miserable plight is a token of God's anger at you, 
and if you do not repent and do better, you know what you have 
to expect." Who that heard such words in a sick-room would 
not be strongly tempted to seize the unfeeling brute, and eject him 
with tokens of righteous indignation that even his rhinoceros 1 hide 
would not shield him from ? Let us beware of blaspheming God, 
and doing a serious injury to religion. Such argumentation is 
simple and unmitigated nonsense. All the theology in the world 
must be unable to convince a thoughtful man that a child can 
justly be held criminally accountable for inheriting a taint, tend- 
ency, or weakness; and any theology that makes the attempt 
puts the knife to its own throat. It is no wonder that intelligent 
men with hearts in their bosoms, and some sense of justice and 
reverence still left, become impatient of such a doctrine. Origi- 
nal Sin, therefore, is not sin at all, nor sinful, if by Original Sin 
we mean that proneness to evil which we inherit from our ances- 
tors : it leads towards actual sin, it results in positive offenses ; 
but in itself it is no more sinful than infantine hydrocephalus or 
consumption is sinful. 

The existence of this universally-transmitted downward tend- 
ency in such strength, necessitated the advent of our Saviour. 
When it was asked why Christ came, Pelagius, not at all disputing 
the divinity of the Redeemer, was ready with an answer which 
fitted admirably into the remainder of the system, and declared 
that His mission was that of setting mankind an example which 
should counterbalance the bad one given by the first Adam. In 
opposing this tenet the orthodox affirmed that Jesus Christ was 
much more than a pattern ; that He undid that which Adam had 
so unhappily done; that He neutralized in those who accepted 
Him as the Second Adam the tendency towards wrong ; that He 
became to all such a new principle of life, and that the redemp- 
tion accomplished by Him extended to the bodies as well as to 
the souls of men. Adam was the father of the human family. 
All born in that household are inheritors of that nature into which 



188 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

his transgression infused such fatal weakness, and unless they 
avail themselves of supernatural aid, and strive vigorously against 
the deadly inclination, they must go on from bad to worse, and 
finally perish forever. While nothing can eradicate that tendency 
on this side of the grave, it is still conceivable that a contrary 
tendency might be implanted which should wage internecine war 
with it, grappling it in a lifelong embrace, and slowly but surely 
crushing it. At the same time, both tendencies may be in a great 
measure subject to the control of the human will, either being 
greatly assisted or impeded in its efforts according as the man's 
volition joins with it or battles against it. Moreover, the good 
principle might be supposed to lie dormant for many years after 
it has been implanted, awaiting an opportunity to shoot up from 
the soil. Then, too, the upward tendency might be handed on by 
spiritual inheritance, as the downward is by the natural. Such is 
precisely the catholic doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration, which 
is in substance that Christ is the Spiritual Adam, who, assuming 
the nature which had been vitiated by the natural Adam, raised 
it to more than its pristine perfection, and imparts the benefit of 
the exaltation through the Holy Spirit's agency to all who are 
made in baptism the children of God, implanting in their spiritual 
natures at the time of that ]\ T ew Birth a Principle of Life which, 
if assisted by their own earnest efforts, the energizings of their 
souls, — or moral, as distinguished from spiritual, natures, — enters 
at once into close combat with the principle of death inherited 
through the first or natural birth, and gradually chokes and sup- 
plants it. 

The Council of Ephesus condemned Pelagius and his doctrines, 
but did not sanction Predestinarianism. How it would have 
treated the peculiar views of St. Augustine, had they come before 
it, we cannot positively say. Let it, therefore, content us that 
the Church never has authoritatively pronounced upon the great 
topic of fore-ordination. The questions involved in that discus- 
sion are consequently not de fide; so that a Christian can hold to 
Calvinism, Arminianism, or even Semipelagianism, and not be 
liable to censure for heresy. Such latitude does the Church 
allow. 

Lest the system which has been represented as the one held 
by the orthodox should by some be charged with having no doc- 
trine of Election, it remains that a brief statement be subjoined 



THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS. 189 

regarding the view generally entertained by the received divines 
of the Church. That God does predestinate some from all eternity 
to be His chosen people, is undeniable. "What we deny is merely 
that He predestinates some to happiness and others to misery, or 
that He selects some for everlasting felicity and leaves others to 
an inevitable doom. The Ideality of such doctrines of Election 
as those held by Calvinists, Arminians, and Nationalists is utterly 
wrong. It is one thing to decree that a given individual shall 
be among the number of the finally saved, and a far different 
thing to ordain that he shall be environed with many and great 
facilities for working out his own salvation. God does give one 
person what appears to us an infinitely better chance of salvation 
than falls to the lot of another. One child, for instance, is reared 
by Christian parents, whose prayers shield, and whose diligent 
and wise care protects its inexperienced and tender years ; while 
another is trained with equal assiduity in the arts of pocket- 
picking and house-breaking. Similarly the Omnipotent so orders 
it that one person is proffered all the privileges of the Holy Cath- 
olic Church, while another is left to grow up under influences 
that render him fiercely hostile to the Gospel. The one may not 
accept the advantages offered him, or else may neglect to improve 
them, and so may convert them into curses ; and the other may 
overcome his disadvantages, and force his way out of darkness 
into the light of truth ; so that such an election is not an election 
that puts a man under compulsion at all, but one that finds him 
able to obtain salvation, and leaves him capable of forfeiting it. 
The days were when Israel after the flesh were the chosen people, 
the " Elect," of Jehovah. They were not all good persons by any 
means, and yet all who had received the rite of circumcision were 
of the number of the " Elect / " God selecting them to perform the 
great work of preparing mankind for the Messiah, and to keep 
alive the knowledge and worship of Him upon the earth, and 
honoring them with many valuable spiritual and temporal bless- 
ings ; but leaving them entirely free to obey Him or to disobey 
Him, to practice good or commit evil, to merit eternal punish- 
ment or obtain unending bliss, as they chose. Those days have in 
a sense gone by, for a remnant only acknowledged their Saviour 
when He came. To that Remnant has been added the vast multi- 
tude of the baptized, and these together now make up the Elect. 
From the thronging myriads of mankind, some nations, some 



190 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

persons have been called into the fold of the Church, while others 
have been left to wander. From East and West and North and 
South they kneel, and have knelt, and will yet kneel, before the 
baptismal font, or stand beneath the canopy of heaven where 
stream or lake affords the cleansing element ; and each, signed 
and sealed, and regenerated, from that moment may know him- 
self an elect man, and one effectually called, but yet in danger of 
falling away, and sure to do so unless he exercise due vigilance. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 

Theee were now to be seen arrayed against each other two 
powers which have usually been linked in close alliance. On the 
one side raged those vast communities of fanatical and often law- 
less separatists from society which abounded all over the East. 
These men had severed all the links which bound them to the 
great world except one : they had forgotten father and mother, 
brothers and sisters, not uncommonly wife and children ; they had 
turned their backs on all ambitious desires, longings after luxuri- 
ous enjoyment, cravings for wealth, pantings after noble activities ; 
they had gone down alive into a self-dug grave ; and yet they were 
held by one tie to the great, busy, bustling, struggling world, a tie 
which was made stronger by the very fact of its being the sole re- 
maining bond. Whatever agitation of society threatened or dis- 
turbed this link, sent an electric thrill through the scattered thou- 
sands of coenobites and anchorites. JSTitrian plains and mountains, 
Syrian forests and deserts, the thronged streets of Constantinople 
and Alexandria, all shook as by some mystic force, and heard with 
alarm the premonitory shouts and whispers of marshaling hosts. 
In the present controversy that was at stake which touched every 
monkish heart at that tenderest of all spots, where the divine in- 
sensibly blends with the human in the deepest of all affections. 
Every recluse of Egypt or the East felt that the Nestorian contest 
pointed a fatal weapon at the religion of Christ, and was also sen- 
sible of a peculiar sting in any doctrine which detracted from the 
real or fictitious honor of the sole virgin whom he dared to re- 
member. While the great body of the Church concerned itself 
about the Theotokos only because they did not wish to admit, or 
seem in the remotest particular to admit, that the Person born of 
the Virgin was a mere man, these others became almost wild in 
their excitement because Mary was, in their opinions, being dis- 



192 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

honored by the rash patriarch of Constantinople and his adher- 
ents. Hence proceeded the powerful inducements which called 
out Dalmatius from his living sepulchre, and, along with him, 
another man destined to figure very largely in the strife, another 
abbot, Eutyches by name. This power, being that of combined 
self-devotion, high, enthusiastic love, and untrammeled energy, 
was one calculated to achieve tremendous results. 

Although one in interest and feeling, this power yet lacked 
unity of organization. Against it came that wonderful system 
which was in later years to mould the monkish fraternities into 
its staunchest and most valuable adherents, personated in one of 
the most remarkable men of his age. When the dreaded Huns, 
repulsed from Gaul by the skill and bravery of ^Etius and his 
Goths, and seeking to wipe away the disgrace w T hich had covered 
their arms on the field of Chalons, broke like a torrent through 
the barriers of Italy and swept over that dismayed land, leaving 
Aquileia to mourn in ashes a prolonged and gallant resistance, 
and seizing the royal palace at Milan, Leo of Home, in company 
with two other ambassadors of the trembling Yalentinian III., 
entered as a suppliant the camp of the fierce barbarian, and won 
from him a treaty which turned his steps away from the Eternal 
City; and when, again, the fleets of those hordes which had over- 
run JSTorth Africa, discharged the troops of Genseric at the port of 
Ostia, Leo shrank not from the face of an Arian conqueror, but 
marched out of the gates at the head of an unarmed procession to 
meet the approaching soldiery, and entreat clemency for the help- 
less citizens. Brave, artful, and possessed of extraordinary talents, 
this bishop devoted his abilities to the aggrandizement of his see, 
advancing claims which had hardly found lodgment in the imagi- 
nations of his predecessors, and seemingly anticipating, as far as he 
was able, the bold schemes of Hildebrand. In a notable contest 
with Hilary of Aries, about the right of the patriarch to restore a 
bishop regularly deposed by his metropolitan, Leo I. manifested 
at once his ambitiousness and his capability, qualities which were 
also displayed with sufficient plainness in his conduct during the 
Eutychian controversy, about which we are now concerned. All 
authorities, however, are agreed in awarding to Leo a right to his 
historical title of Great, and in conceding to him the praise of 
unimpeachable orthodoxy. Certainly it is no slight credit to the 
Koman see that its testimony was borne so unwaveringly against 



i 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 193 

two opposite heresies ; Celestine unhesitatingly condemning that 
of the two-fold personality, without following Cyril into seeming 
Eutychianism; and Leo opposing with even greater decision the 
error of the one nature, without reverting into Nestorianism. 

The antagonism between these two powers was real enough, 
but fell far short of the bitterness which still marked the enmity 
of Egypt and the East, and was due, as of old, partly to the rivalry 
of those mighty emporiums, the cities of Constantine and of Alex 7 
ander, and partly to the scholastic emulation between the disciples 
of Origen and of Diodorus. The reconciliation effected in Cyril's 
day had been only a partial one, and soon gave place to renewed 
strife of even greater malignity. 

In the year 444 Alexandria was deprived of the talents, and 
delivered from the oppressions, of Cyril, and received in his stead 
a prelate who surpassed him in everything but ability, being even 
more violent and unscrupulous than he, but devoid of his dexterity 
in adapting his measures to the exigencies of the occasion, and 
chargeable with gross immoralities of the basest sort. This man, 
in order to extend his influence, indulged in the extremely objec- 
tionable practice of encouraging the disaffected in other jurisdic- 
tions, increasing greatly in this way the difficulties which always 
attend the administration of discipline, and fanning into a hot 
blaze what else would speedily have died out of itself, besides 
alienating from himself the affections of his brethren. Among 
those out of his owm patriarchate who suffered from his machina- 
tions were three of considerable note, two of whom were suspected 
of leaning towards Kestorianism. Theodoret of Cyrus incurred 
his displeasure by adding his name to the list of signers to a cir- 
cular letter issued by Proclus of Constantinople, — an act which 
was distorted into an acknowledgment of the supremacy of that 
patriarch over his own proper patriarch, the Syrian, — and was 
punished for that and for heresy by an anathema. Ibas of Edessa 
narrowly escaped a similar fate. But the full weight of Alexan- 
drian anger descended upon Flavian of Constantinople, whose 
great offense was that he occupied a loftier throne than that which 
held Dioscorus. 

Domnus of Antioch, at the instigation of Dioscorus, accused 
Eutyches, who was a presbyter as well as an abbot, to Flavian, 
but with no effect, as he himself lay under suspicion of Nestorian- 
ism. About one year subsequent, 448, another accuser appeared 



194: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

on the scene in the person of the same Eusebius who had been 
prime mover in the attack upon Nestorius, and who appears to 
have been one of those far-seeing, self-sacrificing, brave spirits 
who, preferring the turmoil of a just and unavoidable war to the 
stagnation of indifference and the lethargy of moral death, val- 
iantly lead forlorn hopes to the great disturbance of their own 
peace, and the no small damage of their reputations. He, now 
bishop of Dorylseum, denounced Eutyches to his patriarch, and 
had him summoned before the council which sat that year, 
much against the wishes of Flavian, whose prudence or timidity 
shrank from the fierce contest, which he too truly foreboded, with 
the factious partisans who were sure to throng to the support of 
the abbot. Eutyches was ready with a subterfuge : he had regis- 
tered a mental vow not to leave his monastery. Unfortunately 
for him, it was remembered that he had already swerved from 
that resolution on one memorable occasion. He yielded so for at 
length as to put in an appearance, but came supported by a large 
train of monks and soldiers, and by an imperial commissioner ; all 
which protection, however, did not avail to save him from being 
found guilty of lapsing into the errors of Yalentinus and Apolli- 
narius, nor from deposition and excommunication. Eutyches 
forthwith made informal appeals to the three remaining patri- 
archs, and had the satisfaction of being received into communion 
by the officious and intermeddling Dioscorus. Theodosius, hav- 
ing weakly and vainly tried to reconcile the patriarch and his 
deprived presbyter, yielding to the pressure brought to bear upon 
him by the Alexandrian faction through Chrysaphius, the reign- 
ing eunuch, called the council which the other side deprecated as 
wholly unnecessary. Ephesus and the same church of St. Mary, 
which eighteen years before had resounded to the acclamations of 
a general council, witnessed the assembling of that infamous body 
which Leo so forcibly characterized as a " Robber Synod." The 
second council of Ephesus, held in 449, was most irregularly con- 
stituted and conducted. In the first place, it was unscrupulously 
packed, many of those bishops who were thought to be unfavor- 
able to Eutyches being excluded, on the ground that they were 
Nestorians, or on any other frivolous charges that could be 
trumped up against them, Theodoret being specially singled out 
by name for exclusion, unless the impossibility should occur that 
the unanimous wish of the assembly should desire his presence ; 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 195 

and, on the other hand, the Syrian abbot, Barsumas, being re- 
ceived as the equivalent of a bishop in behalf of the monkish fac- 
tion. In the second place, the whole council was overawed, with 
the exception of those dauntless souls whom nothing could shake, 
by a vast concourse of unruly and ungoverned monks and para- 
bolani, who attended upon the steps of Dioscorus and Barsumas. 
From beginning to end there seems to have been little else than 
riot and disorder. Cyril's successor apparently remembered the 
transactions of the former meeting, and had resolved to outrival 
his master. One of his shrewdest acts as president was to expel 
all reporters but those on his own side, thus obviating the danger 
of adverse accounts reaching the imperial ear. He contrived to 
evade the repeated efforts of the Roman delegates to secure a 
hearing for a letter which their patriarch had addressed to Flavian, 
it being too powerful an exposition of the true doctrine, in oppo- 
sition to both Eestorius and Eutyches, to please one who had 
already determined for the council as to how it must decide. This 
letter having been received by the assembly, the exclusion of it 
was a wrong to them, as well as an insult to its author. The ex- 
culpation of Eutyches was, of course, a foregone conclusion, and 
so was the condemnation and deposition of Flavian, even though 
in effecting it recourse should be had to extreme duress. The 
two imperial commissioners who had been deputed to keep order, 
either had a most extraordinary conception of their duties, or 
were very incompetent officers. Instead of restraining the tendency 
to riot, the civil arm added to it a great accession of force. When 
the grand scene of terrorism was about to be enacted, the pro- 
consul of Asia, obedient to the summons of Dioscorus, advanced 
into the hall, attended by his minions. A blank sheet of paper, 
intended to be filled out with a sentence of deposition upon Fla- 
vian, was displayed, and the bishops bidden to sign it. A few, 
probably, refused obedience. One of the Roman delegates, the 
deacon Hilary, showed becoming independence, and had diffi- 
culty in escaping through by-ways to Italy; Eusebius was im- 
prisoned, but escaped; Theodoret, Ibas, and even Domnus were 
visited with conciliar censure ; and as for Flavian, he was so terribly 
maltreated, — even to the extent of being kicked and stamped upon 
by Dioscorus and Barsumas, according to the charge of Eusebius 
of Dorylasum against them, as recorded by Evagrius, — that he 
died on a journey only a few days afterwards. 



196 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Eutychianism, like iNestorianism, was an attempt to explain 
the nature of the union between God and man in Jesus Christ. 
The latter started from the two natures, and argued that, inasmuch 
as the natures were separate and distinct, there must be person- 
alities correspondent ; while the former set out with the proposi- 
tion that there is only one person, and proceeded to deduce thence 
a conclusion fully as unwarranted as that against which Cyril had 
contended so fiercely at the first council of Ephesus. Eutychian- 
ism was plainly a reaction from the doctrine of Nestorius, as that 
had been from the still earlier heresy of Apollinarius. When men 
vehemently oppose a particular opinion, they are apt to swing over 
to its opposite : so nothing was more natural than that, in an at- 
tempt to put down the error of two persons, they should insist 
so strongly upon the unity of individuality as to make it include 
a unity of nature also. Eutychianism was, in some respects, a 
return to the Apollinarian point of view : for Apollinarius had 
really fused the two natures into one by denying to our Lord a 
human spirit ; but it differed in carrying the fusion much urther, 
or rather, in boldly acknowledging the commingling that had 
been only inferentially taught by the older system ; and also in 
making the change take place after the union, both natures hav- 
ing been perfect and entire, the divine consubstantial with the 
Father, the human consubstantial with ordinary humanity, until 
the moment at which they were combined in the womb of the 
Yirgin. With respect to this last point, difficulty surrounds the 
notion of the preexist ence of the consubstantial humanity, whicli 
tenet only escaped going over bodily to Nestorianism, and taking 
all with it, by being explained of abstract human nature,— what- 
ever that may be. 

We have already studied the necessity of a nnipersonality in 
our Saviour, and are now to see the equal necessity of the con- 
tinued separateness of the two natures. The belief in one nature 
builds itself chiefly upon the difficulty of imagining a union of the 
divine with the human without a fusion. The trouble is not in ad- 
mitting the possibility that any two natures should preserve their 
distinctness though meeting in the same person, for that every man 
knows to be one of the mysteries of his own existence, feeling him- 
self a duplex being, in whom reside the two un mingled natures 
of the animal and the spirit ; but in conceiving the possibility of 
such union between natures as widely separated from each other 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 197 

as the divine and the human. Every one must be sensible of the 
weight of this objection who does not view the question with the 
rapid and cursory glance of long acceptance, but calmly and stead- 
ily, as Plato would have gazed upon it had the mystery of the in- 
carnation been revealed to him while investigating the problems 
of earth. How can a person be at once created and uncreate, 
passible and impassible, weak and all-mighty, mortal and immor- 
tal, confined in space and filling immensity with his presence, 
finite and infinite ? This is the mystery, this the hard problem, 
this the almost insurmountable obstacle to faith. And, lo ! it is 
proposed to solve and remove it by mixing the two natures ! It 
is hard to believe that the same person hung in agony upon the 
cross and sat painless upon the eternal throne ; but is it easier to 
credit, not that one person did thus in two distinct natures, but 
that one person in one nature felt at once and did not feel the 
sufferings of Calvary? Is it not by far easier to conceive the 
perfect distinctness of the two natures, than to see how the 
human could retain its existence at all when once a fusion 
commenced? Can the infinite be to a small degree finite, and 
not become altogether finite; or can almightiness partake of 
weakness, to however small a degree, without ceasing to be om- 
nipotent ? Another difficulty discloses itself when we turn our 
thoughts to the notion of personality, and wonder how a person 
already existent can endure the augmentation of a new nature. 
In our ideas the personality, eternally-existent, of God the Son, 
seems too thoroughly filled up to admit of the addition of a dis- 
tinct, a continuously distinct, nature ; whereas we can find anal- 
ogies in the changeableness of which we are conscious to support 
the idea of such an addition, provided only the added nature be 
blended with the old and absorbed into it. Let us candidly admit 
the strength of both these objections, and in reply merely urge 
their insufficiency to discredit revelation ; in order to accom- 
plish which it would be requisite to adduce such evident incon- 
sistency that logic would compel us to say, not simply, I cannot 
comprehend this, but explicitly, I cannot credit the possibility of 
this. Faith comes to our aid upon the failure of the Understand- 
ing, and enables the humble-minded to believe, upon sufficient 
evidence, whatever is not invincibly hostile to Reason. 

Having already shown how any tenet which detracts in the 
slightest degree from the unbroken integrity of the two natures 



198 fHE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

undermines the doctrine of the Atonement in general, it is only 
necessary here to point out particularly how the commingling of 
them militates against the continuous exercise of the Mediatorial 
office. If the mediatorship was to be nothing more than a con- 
junction once for all, at one instant of time, of God and man, its 
function would have been discharged, even had a fusion of the 
two natures instantly taken place, at the moment that their junc- 
tion occurred; but that would be a very inadequate and unworthy 
view, indeed, of the tremendous and glorious work which God the 
Son undertook in becoming man. His design was to effect a per- 
manent union of the two natures in Himself as a living witness 
to all the universe that heaven and earth were reconciled. As 
angels or men should dwell in adoring contemplation upon the 
living Christ, they were to behold in His two unmixed natures, 
united in His one person, irrefragable proof of this amazing fact. 
Moreover, in order to act as intercessor for the sinner, the ascended 
Christ needs the undiminished glory and undimmed attributes 
of the Godhead in order to approach the Father, and the weakness 
and narrowness of the humanity in order to descend to the cul- 
prit's level ; while, as the Judge of living and dead He will require, 
upborne upon the cloud- wrapped throne of awful whiteness, both 
the omniscience of perfect deity and the sensibilities and sympa- 
thies of unimpaired humanity. What assurance could we have 
that a mediator who was neither God nor man, but a fusion of the 
two, would either feel for us in our struggles and sufferings with 
the sympathetic heart of perfect manhood, or judge us correctly 
and infallibly with the omniscience of divinity? The Inspired 
Volume can hardly be expected to speak very explicitly on this 
point, any more than on the unipersonality. The Scriptural proof 
of the continuous and unbroken existence of the two distinct 
natures must be in a great measure inferential. Therefore, the 
question is just the one upon which we need the explicit declara- 
tion of some authority to which all are bound to defer. The 
" Robber Synod " gave an utterance thereupon which evoked no 
universal responsive echo, but rather elicited the muttered or out- 
spoken condemnation and execration of a large majority of those 
w T ho received a report of its proceedings. Agitation almost imme- 
diately began for the holding of another council, to undo the 
wretched work of the Latrocinium ; but Theodosius turned a deaf 
ear to a request of that kind, which was made at Leo's urgent sup- 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 199 

plication, by the emperor of the West ; and would probably have 
delayed the downfall of Eutychianism for several years,had not an 
accident providentially removed him from earth. 

A stumbling horse will break the neck of an emperor as 
readily as that of a groom ; at least so the courtiers of Constanti- 
nople must have thought as they beheld the sacred person of 
Theodosius hurled from the saddle of his swift hunter into the 
river Lycus. Pulcheria, whose influence had lately been some- 
what eclipsed by that of the eunuchs, signalized her accession to 
the throne by immediately executing the just punishment of death 
and confiscation of his enormous possessions upon the worthless 
Chrysaphius. For the first time in all history the empire sub- 
mitted to female rule. Elevated by the unanimous voice of an 
attached people, experienced in directing affairs of state, familiar 
with the characters of all who could aspire to seats in her councils 
or to draw their jeweled swords at the head of her armies, and 
beloved by the admiring populace, Pulcheria might pardonably 
have forgotten the prejudices and calumnies to which such a high 
position exposed a woman ; but with the wisdom that had marked 
her previous career, she determined to divide the honors and cares 
of the throne with a nominal husband, and so offered her hand 
and the purple to one altogether worthy of her choice. The 
venerable senator had practiced, through years of honorable pub- 
lic life, the austere lessons taught first by severe poverty among 
the hills of his native Thrace, and later in the arduous campaigns 
of Aspar and Ardaburius. The virtues which he had displayed 
in humbler stations did not desert him when the flattering prefer- 
ence of his sovereign raised him to her side, but justified the 
plaudits which the grateful Church showered upon an adminis- 
tration mild without weakness, just without severity, and honest 
without parsimony. 

Theodosius the Younger had inclined strongly during the 
latter years of his reign towards the Eutychian or Alexandrian 
faction. In this partiality his sister had never sympathized with 
him, but she had been unable to make head against it and the 
influence of the corrupt favorite. Now that she was free to act 
her own pleasure, and had chosen for her colleague a worthy man 
whose theological and religious views and sentiments coincided 
with her own, it was evident that the star of heterodoxy was about 
to set. Yet there were reasons which made it prudent for the sov- 



200 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ereigns to advance cautiously in their dealings with Dioscorus and 
his followers. They could not well afford to do aught which 
would tend to alienate from them a large portion of the inhabit- 
ants of an empire which already shook beneath the tramp of ex- 
pected invaders. They could not hope that the storm which had 
already burst in such fury upon the whole Latin world, inundating 
Gaul, Spain, Italy, and North Africa with devastating swarms of 
Goths, Huns, and Yandals, would spare their own territories. 
Already Goth, Arab, Mogul, Tartar, Persian, and Turk seemed 
to lift in observation their crested heads all along the shore line 
of the Greek empire, some close at hand, others discerned, but not 
discriminated, by the far-seeing eye of prophetic fear. How, then, 
should the rulers venture to take any steps which would tend to 
weaken the allegiance of their own subjects ? Here stands dis- 
closed one of the greatest evils resulting from the unblessed con- 
junction of Church and State. See! Nisibis and Edessa already 
cower before the uplifted sword of the Persian : therefore, heretics 
must not be affronted by censure, lest the empire should be de- 
spoiled of her defenders ! Even Pulcheria and Marcian, staunch 
to the core, hardly dare to authorize the meeting of a much- 
needed synod, and stand undecided. However, in the sanguine 
hope that the contending parties may be reconciled by a confer- 
ence, and so the forces of the empire compacted rather than 
weakened, they yield to the solicitations of Leo so far as to con- 
voke a General Council at Nice, in Bithynia, to be held in 451. 
The Eoman bishop had strongly urged that the place of meeting 
should be appointed in Italy, but naturally could not bring the 
Eastern emperor to concede this. The memories of the First 
General Council still hovering about Nice would, it was imagined, 
pervade the atmosphere with a holy calm, sedative of the un- 
governable passions which some were sure to bring even to a 
concourse of divines ; but, as soon as the usual Alexandrian mob 
appeared in the thoroughfares of Nice, all such anticipations were 
speedily dissipated, and the air grew thick with the gathering 
storm. It was apparent that the only prospect of peace lay in 
the direction of imperial supervision, and so the six hundred and 
thirty prelates were transferred to Chalcedon, which lay so near 
the metropolis as to be almost a suburb, and therefore afforded 
opportunity for the throne to watch their proceedings with closer 
scrutiny than would have been possible where distance prevented 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 201 

speedy communication. It is a melancholy confession to make, 
that a concourse of bishops needed the interposition of the secular 
magistrate to restrain them from using personal violence upon each 
other, but the disgrace of such an acknowledgment is somewhat 
tempered by the reflection that this deterioration of the episcopal 
character was due to the interference of the civil authority in 
various ecclesiastical matters, and especially in promoting ecclesi- 
astics of no character, and in preventing the Church from de- 
throning many a prelate whom nothing but that support maintained 
in a seat which he disgraced. 

The Church of St. Euphemia stands outside of the walls of 
Chalcedon, on an eminence overlooking the Bosporus and com- 
manding a full view of the shipping, warehouses, towers, and 
spires of Constantinople, the distant picture being set in a beauti- 
ful foreground of verdant country and well-wooded slopes. In 
the midst of so striking and peaceful a scene, and within the 
sacred precincts of that noble structure, both of which are so 
glowingly described by Evagrius, assembled the members and 
attendants of the Fourth Council, which was destined to be one 
of the most remarkable in the annals of history. Besides those 
who rightly occupied seats in the assembly, there were present 
and taking a prominent part in the proceedings, nineteen of the 
highest officers of state. The excuse for their intrusion may have 
been partly that Dioscorus was to be tried' for his conduct at the 
last council, and partly that the interests of the public demanded 
the restraining influence of their august presence ; but whatever 
it was, we cannot repress a sigh because so bad a precedent was 
set at so great a gathering of dignitaries ; not that the correct- 
ness or authoritativeness of the decrees were in any respect shaken 
by their interference, but that color was given for future encroach- 
ments and. a stigma put upon the Church as unable to take care 
of her own affairs. 

All the patriarchs were present with the exception of Leo, who 
had sent two bishops and a presbyter as his delegates. These 
three, with Anatolius of Constantinople, presided. The council 
was by far the largest as to the number of bishops that had yet 
been gathered, among those at least that are called oecumenical. 
The "West, it is true, was in no condition to dispatch bishops to 
great distances from their homes, the ravages of the barbarians 
making the prospect of their prolonged absence one not to be 



202 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

cheerfully borne by their flocks; nor probably would it have 
broken in upon its old custom of leaving questions of the faith to 
be decided by the Greeks, even had Genseric not been lord of 
Africa, nor Attila passing like a sirocco over the fairest portions 
of southern Europe. Africa appeared by two bishops only, and 
it is uncertain whether they were not self-delegated. 

The prompt action of the Koman delegation prevented the 
patriarch of Alexandria from taking the seat which belonged to 
that see, they demanding that he should be brought before the 
bar of the house and not be permitted to sit as judge, and declar- 
ing that otherwise they must, in compliance with their instruc- 
tions, withdraw from the deliberations. Dioscorus was accord- 
ingly, after some demur from the imperial commissioners and a 
brief discussion, instructed to place himself in the midst of the 
house, as a person under accusation. Eusebius of Dorylseum once 
more entered the lists in his accustomed character, presaging per- 
haps that the day had arrived which should behold the tables 
turned upon the party at whose hands he had endured so much 
two years previously. At the joint request of Dioscorus and 
Eusebius, the acts of the former council were passed in review 
before this assembly, the reading of them consuming the greater 
part of the day. Much excitement prevailed throughout the session, 
and burst forth in a wild uproar when the commissioners directed 
that Theodoret should be admitted, the Egyptians shouting out 
against him fiercely as " the master of Nestorius." Theodoret 
calmly entered the hall with the mild dignity which characterized 
him, and advanced to the seat allotted him as plaintiff. This 
blow fell upon the Alexandrians like a thunderbolt, though Dios- 
corus retained his presence of mind, and continued to watch the 
proceedings with unabated vigilance and occasionally check them 
with wonted sharpness. But his adherents gradually fell off, par- 
ticularly Juvenalis of Jerusalem, who had cooperated with him on 
the former occasion. This patriarch, with the Palestinian bishops, 
moved imperceptibly away from the haughty prelate, and took up 
a position on the other side of the church. Others followed their 
example, till Dioscorus could only count thirteen supporters, four 
of his own clergy having gone over. The reading had struck 
shame and contrition into the deserters' hearts, reminding them 
of the artifices which had been employed, such as those which had 
shut out the letter of the Koman bishop to Flavian, and revealing 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 203 

too plainly the malfeasance of Dioscorus and his party in falsify- 
ing the record, many passages of which were discovered to he 
arrant forgeries. It was seen to be only plain justice to restore 
the names of Flavian and Eusebius to their honorable places on 
the church's rolls, and to pronounce sentence of deposition upon 
Dioscorus, Juvenalis, and their assessors for having wickedly con- 
demned innocent mem Eventually, however, all were pardoned 
as having acted under constraint, except the leader. That arro- 
gant prelate was put under arrest to prevent his fleeing from Chal- 
cedon, and, refusing to attend the further sittings of the council, 
was, after repeated summons, deprived and banished. 

The case of Theodoret yet remained undecided. Although 
Rome had pronounced him orthodox, this deposed bishop was 
strongly suspected of still adhering to the old Antiochene heresy. 
"When, during the eighth session, his case was separately examined, 
great difference of sentiment regarding him manifested itself. 
Courtesy, not to say justice, would seem to have required that 
he should be permitted to explain himself, and his voice not be 
drowned down by the outcries of the reverend fathers when he 
made the attempt to elucidate his belief. Finally the matter was 
settled by his distinctly condemning Nestorius and Nestorianism, 
the rejection of the term Theotokos, and the assertion of the double 
personality : this declaration satisfied the council, and procured 
him its voice in favor of his reinstatement in his see. Ibas was 
also restored to the see of Edessa, and thus these two men were 
temporarily relieved from the ill report under which they had so 
patiently labored, not, however, long to continue undisturbed by 
the breath of calumny. 

The Council itself would gladly have ended its toils when the 
wrongs done by the Robber-Synod had been righted. The em- 
peror, on the other hand, desired that it should not adjourn before 
it had set forth a clear and full statement of doctrine in opposition 
to the heretical schools. While we should rejoice to see the secu- 
lar power for once exerting, its influence to bring about a measure 
which must be adjudged in its ultimate fruits beneficial to the 
Church, we must not forget to notice with commendation the 
manifest reluctance of the great assemblage to dogmatize. The 
same spirit had shown itself beforehand in the raising of objec- 
tions against the calling of a council, on the ground that it was 
unnecessary, the faith being already sufficiently well established ; 



204 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

and after the sessions had begun, this repugnance held its own for 
some time against the senate's urgency. Instead of being eager 
to exhibit their learning and skill in erecting new platforms and 
devising additional formulae, instead of deeming themselves com- 
petent to evolve out of their own intellects infallible dogmas for 
the guidance of mankind, instead of supposing that the grace of 
heavenly enlightenment was so thoroughly under their own con- 
trol that they had it constantly at command, these men, deeply 
imbued with the unvarying sentiment of catholic antiquity, shrank 
in diffidence and humility from a function which they felt ex- 
tremely perilous to the individual, as feeding his pride if unneces- 
sarily exercised, and to the Church, as liable to contract her bound- 
aries within narrower limits than her blessed Founder designed. 
It was only after considerable delay and much protestation that, 
at the fifth session, a declaration of faith was at last agreed upon 
and submitted to the emperor for his approval. This declaration 
explicitly pronounced against Eutychianism. Eutych.es himself 
went further, it is supposed, than most of those who professed to 
believe in one nature were prepared to accompany him, and did not 
admit that the human nature of the Saviour, before its union with 
the divine, was con substantial with ours, but taught that, like the 
celebrated image of the Ephesian Diana, it had descended from 
heaven. This heresy (which Eutyches himself may have held) the 
unanimous sentiment spontaneously reprobated ; so that an ex- 
pression to that effect, couched in the affirmation that Christ is 
" of two natures," would have met with small opposition, because 
it would have been understood to imply only that there were two 
natures before the conjunction took place. As many persons con- 
ceded this who yet denied that the two natures remained after 
that event, as Flavian had been deposed for attacking this last 
theory, and as Leo's famous " Tome " contained a similar assault, 
it was obviously requisite that the declaration of the Fourth (Ecu- 
menical Council should not stop short of Leo's and Flavian's asser- 
tion that Christ exists " in two natures," unless, indeed, it meant 
to retract its recent action in deposing Dioscorus, hopelessly offend 
the whole Latin Church, and surrender the doctrine of the Media- 
torship. The necessity of definitely pronouncing in favor of the 
words " in two natures " was indeed so plain that opposition was 
finally obliged to retire before the face of a decree to that effect. 
The discussions upon this question involved the much-mooted 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 205 

point of Cyril's orthodoxy, lie having frequently used language 
which looked towards the belief in one nature. In regard to this 
matter, it is to be remembered that persons unused to abstract 
thinking encounter no small difficulty in accurately distinguishing 
between the ideas of nature and person, and that the very best 
thinkers and most careful speakers and writers often use those 
words interchangeably. Nature has both a broader and a nar- 
rower significance; the narrower and more exact designating 
mere qualities and characteristics, and the higher and broader in- 
cluding the abstract something to which these belong. Above 
this second meaning is a less common one, which embraces not 
only the thing, but the person also : a usage which is figurative, 
but not wholly improper. Thus, when we say, It is the nature 
of man to rebel against oppression, we select a particular quality 
and call that his nature; but when we compare him with the 
brute, and say that his lower nature is similar to that of the horse 
or the anthropoid ape, we no longer dwell upon one feature, but 
have gathered up a number into a congeries, and conferred them all 
upon a something to which we give the name mentioned above, 
and of which we believe in the positive, or only in the ideal, exist- 
ence, according as we are realists or nominalists. Should we rise 
another step, and say, Human nature cried out against the wrong, 
we may be employing the rhetorical figure called metonymy, but 
are certainly attributing a very decided personality to nature. 
The vulgar understanding does not easily separate the different 
natures of which the human being is composed, but is strongly 
disposed to look upon him as possessed of one compounded, but in- 
dissolvable, nature as much a unit as is his individuality. Strangely 
oblivious of the perpetual contest which rages in each between the 
higher inclinations and those that draw their inspiration from the 
animal, and bears continuous witness to the existence of two distinct 
natures no further fused than as the one has been contaminated 
by contact with the other, and debased by voluntary subjection to 
it, the multitude are hardly to be weaned from the notion of a 
single nature in man even by the power and beauty of their faith 
in the continued life of the one while the other has been extin- 
guished by death. The two ideas being thus closely interwoven 
in the popular comprehension, it is evident that many may have 
been seeming Eutychians when they were really orthodox, and 
that, in arguments and exhortations directed against Nestorianisra, 



206 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

the most correct and profound thinkers, especially before the rise 
of the later heresy, might employ without blame language which, 
looked at from another standpoint, would lay its authors open to 
severe criticism. 

Was it not, then, a great mistake, of which this council may 
be justly accused, to have forced upon the unlearned and simple- 
minded dogmas too abstruse for their limited capacities and meagre 
attainments, and thus to have needlessly expelled from the Church 
multitudes who would otherwise have been her loyal children to 
the end, and died in the full communion of saints ? "We may 
lament the loss to the Catholic Church of the Monophysite myriads 
who refused to accept the decrees of Chalcedon, as we must deplore 
the departure from her fold of those sectaries who won such brill- 
iant victories for Christianity according to Nestorius ; and we may 
without treason even venture to suggest that wiser measures 
might have been devised which would have retained millions 
within the sentry-lines of the true Israel ; but we must not forget 
that the rise of such disturbances was predicted, and the definite 
reason stated to be in order that it might be made manifest who 
were true and staunch and who were not. As far as the Faith 
was concerned, the Church was under most awful responsibility 
to defend it from all innovation. What would have become of 
that Faith had the doctrine of a single nature prevailed, has already 
been sufficiently shown. The blame of the secession rests upon 
Eutyches, Dioscorus, and Constantine the Great ; on Eutyches for 
teaching heresy, upon Dioscorus for supporting him with the arts 
of a politician and the violence of a highwayman ; and upon the 
emperor for usurping prerogatives which ought not to have been 
his, and thus transmitting to his successors the power of troubling 
the Church. Shall we blame a parent for disturbing the peace of 
the household because he enforces discipline ? It is the undutiful 
child, not the father, who is blamable for the necessary infliction 
of punishment. Simplicity of belief is eminently desirable, per- 
haps, but how can simplicity be maintained where the other party 
insists upon resorting to sophistry ? Besides, what is so very 
abstruse, metaphysical, and difficult about the faith enunciated by 
Ephesus and Chalcedon ? The proofs and arguments may be rec- 
ondite and psychological enough, but common people were never 
asked to enter upon their examination. What is exacted from 
the populace is the belief that Christ, having always been perfect 



TEE COUNCIL OF CEALCEBON. 207 

God, of one substance with the Father, took upon Him the body 
and soul and spirit, not of any individual, preexistent man, but of 
humanity at ]arge, and thus became a perfect man, of one sub- 
stance with John or Peter, uniting in his own individuality two 
natures, which retained all their characteristics of power or weak- 
ness, and remained as perfect and distinct in all particulars as they 
were before their union in His single personality. Is this doctrine, 
indeed, so far removed from ordinary life, so high-elevated above the 
plane of common cogitation, that a twelve-year-old child of aver- 
age sense cannot be made to understand it ? If the Egyptians, for 
example, still vociferated that Christ was in one nature, instead 
of adopting the formula of Leo's Tome, why did they maintain 
such resistance ? Because party-spirit prohibited them from coin- 
ciding with the Bithynians and Thracians, because pride forbade 
their receding from a position they had once taken, and because 
their contentiousness and stubbornness had incensed the Lord to 
such a degree that He had punished them with spiritual blindness, 
and allowed the truth to become obscured from their eyes. 

The decree of faith gave emphatic utterance to the conserv- 
atism of the Church, for it went away back to the Creed of the 
three hundred and eighteen Fathers and reaffirmed it, loyally 
accepted the improved formula of the one hundred and fifty 
Fathers, and, having thus protested against innovation, came 
down to the more recent oecumenical synod, and confirmed its 
decision in favor of the term Theotokos, and lastly, adopted the 
celebrated letter to Flavian as a wise and able exposition of those 
points of doctrine which needed to be defended against both !Nes- 
torianism and Eutychianism, and as worthy of being lifted above 
the status of a mere bishop's circular letter, and stamped with 
the authoritative sanction of a general council. This decree hav- 
ing been approved by the emperor in a speech made on the occa- 
sion of his appearance, together with Pulcheria, at the sixth session, 
it was subscribed by the bishops, and eventually ratified by the 
Church at large, so becoming a fourth bulwark of the faith. 

If Chalcedon was oecumenical, it is hard to escape the conclu- 
sion that Xicaea, Constantinople, and Ephesus were so too. The 
authoritativeness of those three great assemblies of Christian 
bishops was assumed through all its deliberations, as well as im- 
plied in its decree of faith. That Chalcedon was oecumenical, 
who can doubt ? The gathering was large enough to embrace 



208 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

sufficient learning, talent, and fidelity, if six hundred and thirty 
leading divines were not too few to secure those qualities ; it was 
not sectional, for the West was represented by the delegates from 
Rome (three, four, or five in number, according to different au- 
thorities), who certainly exercised considerable influence over its 
deliberations, and was also permitted to speak very distinctly 
through the remarkable letter of the Latin patriarch ; and its de- 
crees were afterwards, — not, it is however true, without prolonged 
and bitter controversy, — accepted by Christendom. It is an advan- 
tage sometimes to be able to concentrate our attention upon a 
small field of history, very much as it is to the naturalist to direct 
his eye upon the extremely minute object that lies at the focus of 
his powerful magnifier. Such scrutiny may bring to sight imper- 
fections that are not pleasant to contemplate ; but it also discloses 
unsuspected and marvelous beauties, and affords that insight into 
the nature of things which is so grateful to the active intelligence. 
In Chalcedon, then, let those who are interested in the subject of 
a dogmatic faith be assured that they will find what will more 
than repay them for the labor of study. Had each council stood, 
as it were, alone, not alluding in any way to its predecessors, not 
only would such reticence have cast grave suspicion upon the cor- 
rectness of our theory, but the work of searching for the proofs 
of its general acceptance by the Church would have spread itself 
over great space. We have Chalcedon to thank for simplifying 
the labor of investigation by narrowing it down in the way that 
has been pointed out. To the patient student, wearied and dis- 
tracted with examining records and brooding over religious con- 
tests, how pleasant to arrive at a stage that invites him to rest 
and survey from an admirable outlook the ground over which he 
has plodded, and feel his glowing cheeks fanned by the renovating 
breeze ! For one who has been putting a much-contested theory 
to the severest practicable tests, and has not yet succeeded in 
entirely satisfying himself that it endures them, what a relief to 
become suddenly conscious that his theory is, after all, really the 
one which lies deep in the minds of all competent judges ! The 
devout explorer, who has been forcing his toilsome way through 
the numberless obstructions which time, unbelief, and error have 
strewn along the channel leading to Catholic Truth, arrives in 
his downward course upon the current of history at the Fourth 
Council, his bark being nearly ready to founder by reason of the 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 209 

injuries done upon her hull, and lo ! he discovers that the now- 
deserted water-way was once thronged with goodly vessels, and 
takes heart to hope that the pennants of many navies will again 
float upon its breezes. Who does not see that the whole heart 
of the Church was, in 451, filled with reverence for antiquity, and 
with respect for the decisions of such councils as were acknowl- 
edged to have been oecumenical ? Divided as men might be upon 
points then under discussion, in these feelings they were a unit. 
Dioscorus and Theodoret, Marcian, Pulcheria, and Leo, monks, 
parabolani, soldiers, sailors, and common people, all were ready to 
raise an outcry, or lift the strong hand, against any one who should 
impugn Nice, Constantinople, or Ephesus. Knowing as well as 
we can the character of those assemblies, and scarcely yet recovered 
from the shock of the Latrocinium, they do not pour contempt 
upon the idea that such gatherings can speak with any authorita- 
tiveness ; they do not ridicule them as meetings of garrulous old 
women, or as mobs of riotous and drunken pirates ; nor do they 
proclaim with trumpet-cry the extraordinary theory that every boor 
is competent to fabricate his own theology, but with the homage 
of loyal hearts all bow before the ratified decrees of the three 
councils as being sanctioned by the very Spirit of truth. 

In authoritatively delivering its witness to the full doctrine of 
the Hypostatical Union, Chalcedon put the last abutment to the 
great arch of the Incarnation, upon which rests the only bridge 
that leads the sinner back to his heavenly Father. At Nice, it 
had been declared that the Son of God is of the same essence or 
substance with His Father; and at Constantinople had been 
rescued from attack the integrity of His manhood. These two 
councils having thus prepared, if we may so speak without ir- 
reverence, the materials that were to be theoretically fabricated 
into the God-man, our adorable Redeemer, it remained to be de- 
termined whether the Divinity, consubstantial with that of the 
Father, and the humanity, consubstantial with ordinary humanity, 
were really united in Him, and if so, whether they were com- 
mingled, or were preserved distinct % At Ephesus, came up the 
first question, it being promptly decided in favor of a thorough 
personal union : so, there was left for Chalcedon only to protect 
the two natures, admitted to have been perfectly divine and per- 
fectly human, respectively, before the conjunction, from being 
absorbed the one into the other, and so utterly lost, or fused into 



210 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

a third somewhat not God, nor man, nor both. When the Fourth 
Council had signalized its sixth session by decreeing in favor 
of the continued and absolute distinctness of the two natures, 
nothing more was needed for the full determination of the manner 
in which the two hypostases, or natures, were joined. From the 
date of that decree, or, we will say, from the period when it was 
ratified by the common consent of the Church Catholic, the doc- 
trine of the Hypostatical Union was one de fide. The Church 
cannot, it is true, compel men to believe what they are resolute 
in rejecting, but loyal to the Lord who died for her, she has done 
what she could, first, to shield His divinity from insult, and then 
to defend from outrage the glorious doctrine of the Atonement. 

Chalcedon invites another reflection. What but the guidance 
of the Eternal Spirit could ever have made the needle point so 
true in the midst of so many disturbing causes ? See the mutual 
relations of Nestorianism and Eutychianism. How natural it is 
to sweep around from the repelling error of two persons into the 
opposite error of one nature, or, if driven away from the latter, 
to circle around to the former! Yet the Church displays no 
such tendency. Hers is not the strength that merely suffices to 
repulse the foe, and itself suffers from the force of reaction, but that 
imperturbable might which hurls the assailant back and is scarcely 
sensible of effort. Calmly confident in the impregnability of the 
position in which her God has placed her, she moves not from it 
whether Arius or Apollinarius, JSTestorius or Eutyches comes 
against her. She merely lifts a hand of warning and exclusion 
before the intruder, and undisturbed, unperplexed, and unintimi- 
dated passes a new watchword to her children, so that they may 
know how to distinguish each other from the erring progeny of 
heresy. 

There was, however, much in the conduct of the Chalcedonian 
fathers that we could wish to have been otherwise. Especially, 
perhaps, were they deficient in the conciliatory spirit, forgetting 
in their zeal for orthodoxy to cultivate the grace of gentleness. 
Animosities were not allayed. The Alexandrians, in particular, 
returned to their homes chafing under a sense of defeat and 
burning to revenge themselves upon their ancient rivals. Dios- 
corus was an exile in Paphlagonia. His successor, Proterius, was 
a Catholic, but was opposed by a faction comprising perhaps the 
more numerous and influential section of his flock, awed at first by 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 211 

the severity of Marcian, but ready to rise in insurrection at the 
earliest opportunity. Just as soon as the repressive force of the 
military arm was removed by the death of that emperor, Timothy 
iElurus (the Cat) was installed by a mob, and Proterius murdered 
with circumstances of great savageness and indignity. The claws 
of this usurper were torn from their feline hold by an edict of the 
emperor Leo, and another Timothy (surnamed Salophaciolus) con- 
secrated in his place. This fortunate choice secured fifteen years 
of quiet and prosperity to the troubled see, until the seizure of 
the imperial throne by Basiliscus, a Monophysite, brought back 
JElurus from Cherson, whither he had been banished. Soon after 
the restoration of Zeno, whom Basiliscus had driven from his 
throne, the heretical Timothy died, and Peter Mongus was irregu- 
larly elevated in his place, only to be immediately deposed in 
order to make way for the return of Salophaciolus. John Talaia, 
who soon succeeded this Timothy, was ejected, for reasons of his 
own, by Zeno : whereupon he threw himself at the feet of the 
Eoman patriarch. Peter the Hoarse (Mongus) pitched his voice 
to the key of deception, and was suffered to take possession of the 
episcopal staff. By accepting the Henoticon, this man gained the 
Catholics and alienated large numbers of his own adherents, who 
received the name of Acephali, or the Headless, from having lost 
their leader. These strifes continued to rend the Alexandrian 
church and sometimes to stain the pavements with human blood, 
until the horror reached the climax, as it is said, of flooding the 
gutters with the gore of two hundred thousand souls slain at the 
installation of Apollinarius. 

Palestine was the seat of similar disturbances, Juvenalis, upon 
his return from the Council of Chalcedon, being shut out for two 
years from the see for which he had just obtained the grant of the 
patriarchal dignity, by a seditious monk, named Theodosius, whom 
he found in possession and sustained by the influence of Eudocia, 
the widow of Theodosius II. Antioch was also subject to agi- 
tations, one noted patriarch, the contemporary of Peter Mongus, 
being expelled and restored several times. This man also was 
named Peter, and was distinguished by an epithet which recalled 
the occupation he had followed while a monk, Fullo, or the Fuller. 
The entire Eastern Church, indeed, rocked from side to side be- 
neath the gales which, from time to time, rushed down upon it. 

Three incidents of the weary contest may be selected for 



212 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

remark. In 457 the emperor Leo, desirous of reconciling the 
various parties, had recourse to an expedient which furnishes us 
with clear and incontrovertible proof that the decisions of Chal- 
cedon were approved by the great mass of Christians in the com- 
munion of the Catholic Church. He sent to all the bishops in 
the various provinces, and to some of the most distinguished 
monks, a letter missive enjoining them to give their opinions in 
regard to the Council of Chalcedon and the claims of the usurping 
Timothy of Alexandria. We are told that the replies unani- 
mously condemned iElurus and approved the council. The quali- 
fication is added, however, that some Pamphylian bishops regret- 
ted that the assembly had thought it necessary to insist upon the 
definitions of the hypostatical union as terms of communion. 
We see, then, that in the sixth year after the holding of the 
Fourth Council, although a few doubted the wisdom of setting 
forth the decree of faith which it issued, all the bishops of the 
Greek empire, from the midst of their people, as it were, and sur- 
rounded by their presbyters and deacons, pronounced without 
hesitation in favor of the correctness of that decree ; as did also 
the bishop of Rome. The only method of destroying the con- 
clusiveness of this proof would seem to be that of showing that 
some of the responses were given under coercion. Under all the 
circumstances, it is not easy to count Egypt on the side of the 
council, the opposition to it there continuing all along so incessant 
and so violent, that great suspicion must attend any momentary 
departure from such a course of antagonism. But let those who 
require absolute unanimity for the sanctioning of a conciliar de- 
cree, concern themselves about this matter. As for ourselves, 
having adopted a theory which is ready to content itself with a 
marked preponderance of testimony in favor of the decree, we 
may drop a tear over the ecclesiastical grave of Alexandrian 
orthodoxy, but are in no mood to weep as though we had buried 
the Catholic Faith along with it. 

When the cowardice of the abandoned Zeno hurried him away 
into the fastnesses of mountainous Isauria, Basiliscus made his 
brief usurpation memorable in ecclesiastical annals, by presuming 
to issue a circular letter virtually pronouncing upon questions of 
the faith. This commanded all who received it to attach their 
signatures to the document in token that they condemned the 
council of Chalcedon, and, announcing severe penalties against all 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON. 213 

who should neglect to obey, obtained the sanction of so many 
names that we are compelled to blush for the episcopate of the 
epoch. The subsequent act of the same weak prince in issuing a 
counter-circular, as soon as rumor threatened his throne and life, 
might have warned a more prudent monarch than Zeno to refrain 
from following a precedent which had so doubtful an origin ; but 
he chose to imitate the example rather than heed the admonition, 
and accordingly sent out a letter which was intended to effect a 
compromise between the contending parties, and was thence 
called a Henoticon. The substance of it was that the faith of 
Chalcedon should be accepted, but the council itself ignored, the 
supposition on which it proceeded being that the virulent opposi- 
tion was pointed, not at the decree of faith, but at the synod itself 
on account of other measures which had 'received its sanction. 
This idea, doubtless, was in a measure correct, and very likely it 
Was further true that multitudes of those who called themselves 
Monophysites were so only in name, being thoroughly catholic at 
heart; but definitions of doctrine cannot be lightly tossed away 
because some who object to them are well-meaning persons led 
away by strong prejudices, nor can the authority of a solemn 
council be given up on a similar pretext. At first the new move- 
ment promised well. Peter Mongus signed it and was confirmed 
in the see of Alexandria, and Peter Fullo of Antioch also con- 
sented to it ; both of whom had been pronounced Eutychians, and 
probably remained so. This was in the year 482. Acacius of 
Constantinople at once admitted Mongus into communion, and 
thereby drew down upon himself the just indignation of the 
Roman patriarch, who had the double motive for interfering that 
John Talaia, the expelled bishop of Alexandria, was personally 
pressing his suit upon him, and that the Constantinopolitan had 
thus not only rejected the council of Chalcedon, but to some 
extent, as he was likely to think, treated with indignity the 
Tome of Leo. Possibly emboldened by the victories which had 
established the barbarian, Odoacer, upon the throne of Italy, 
Felix III. and a Roman synod deposed Acacius, excommunicated 
him, and wrote accordingly to the Eastern emperor. As the 
patriarch replied by removing the name of Felix from the dip- 
tychs, the result of the attempt at reconciliation was that the 
Henoticon created a schism between the two great sections of the 
church, which lasted from 484 to 519. 



214 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

It is not to be imagined that Eutychianism had really con- 
quered at Constantinople, a consummation that was precluded by 
the ancient rivalry of the Bosporus and the Mle, if by nothing 
else. Felix had a strong party there, particularly among the 
monks. Some of the successors of Acacius were themselves in- 
clined that way. At last Justin came into power, supported by 
two ministers who were warm friends to Chalcedon, Yitalian and 
the future emperor Justinian. The breach was thereupon healed 
at the instigation of the populace, who demanded from John, the 
new prelate, upon occasion of his first public appearance, the 
recognition of Chalcedon, the condemnation of Eutyches, Euty- 
chians, and Eutychianism, root and branch, and a return to fel- 
lowship with old Kome. Upon the Roman patriarch Hormisdas's 
receding a little from his primary demands, the broken harmony 
was restored, and the Henoticon vanished from the scene. 

The Eutychians after the council of Chalcedon were generally 
called by the name of Monophy sites, inasmuch as they had dis- 
owned to a great extent the heresiarch from whom they drew 
their being. In course of time they were divided up into a num- 
ber of different sects, some of them distinguished by very shadowy 
lines of separation , One of the most famous disputed about the 
corruptibility of our Saviour's body, claiming that it was naturally 
exempt from the weaknesses of ordinary flesh and submitted to 
them voluntarily. The energy and wisdom of a great mind are 
needed to organize victory for a sect as well as for a people. Such 
a leader was given the Monophysites in the person of Jacob Bara- 
dseus, a Syrian monk, who, after traveling with amazing zeal and 
perseverance over vast regions, died in 578 at Edessa, leaving be- 
hind him, for an enduring monument, well-established and flour- 
ishing churches of the sect in Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Egypt, 
Nubia, Abyssinia, and other countries, and having so thoroughly 
stamped his impress upon the denomination that it has since be- 
come known by the name of Jacobites. Although the missionary 
enterprises of the Jacobites never vied with those of the Nestorians 
in point of universality and success, they were far from being dis- 
creditable. Armenia, the scene on which appeared the disciples 
of Julian of Halicarnassus, soon after he had given birth to the 
heresy of the Incorruptibilists, and Abyssinia, whither Alexan- 
drian Monophysitism early penetrated, became distinguished as 
strongholds of the sect. In later times, while the numbers of the 



THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEBON. 215 

Jacobites have dwindled into comparative insignificance, while 
their influence has decreased almost to the point of extinction, and 
their Christianity become scarcely preferable in respect of morality 
to the paganism or Mahommedanism by which they are sur- 
rounded, they still raise in the East the banner of opposition to 
Chalcedon and profess a belief in the one nature of Christ. 



CHAPTEK XII. 

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

The four general councils of which we have been treating, 
having each pronounced upon one or more cardinal doctrines, 
together presented to the world a well-rounded system of faith, 
and one so complete as seemingly to leave little of vital impor- 
tance to be determined by any future assembly. The dogmas 
concerning the Con substantiality and the Hypostatical Union had 
displayed the truth respecting the Incarnation in so clear a light 
to the inquiring and reverential mind, that no one need any longer 
be in doubt as to what he ought to believe in regard to God the 
Son, or as to the propriety of worshiping Him : let skeptics ad- 
vance what arguments they chose, these dogmas opposed to them 
an impregnable barrier. When the reconciliation with Hormis- 
das effected by John and his successor, Epiphanius, closed the 
schism between Rome and Constantinople, and affixed the seal of 
general ratification to the resolutions of the six hundred and thirty 
fathers, then it had been clearly defined by the highest authority 
that there exist in Christ two natures, one consubstantial in the 
strictest sense with that of God the Father, the other consubstan- 
tial in a less proper sense with that of ordinary humanity; the 
one perfect God, the other perfect man, with all the parts, body, 
soul, and spirit, which belong to humanity ; and these two na- 
tures, remaining utterly distinct and separate after the conjunction, 
without either absorption or fusion, the divine still perfectly divine, 
and the human still perfectly human, the former not being deprived 
by the union of a single divine attribute in the most infinitesimal 
degree, nor the latter endowed with the smallest imaginable portion 
of a superhuman quality; and yet united, not by affinity, nor alli- 
ance, nor courtesy, but by the one inseverable bond of individuality, 
which constituted a single person at once finite and infinite, weak 
and almighty, limited in knowledge and omniscient, eternal and 



TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 217 

born in time, incapable of feeling pain and susceptible of the 
keenest torture, Lord of life and mortal ; which enabled the all- 
glorious Son of the Most High to shed His blood for the sinful 
race of Adam, and then to stand their triumphant advocate before 
the Father ; and will fit Him to come in the clouds of heaven as 
the judge of the world, awful, compassionate, and infallible. 
Surely, it seems as though controversy might have stopped at this 
point. Heretics could scarcely hope to surprise the Church any 
longer, for what could they suggest that was erroneous concerning 
the Son of Man which had not been already fully answered? 
Should they, indeed, pretend to have found a weak place in the 
defenses, Zion might, one would think, smile without danger at 
the emptiness of their boasting, and rely in perfect confidence 
upon the strength of her walls. Other doctrines would, perhaps, 
be threatened, but that of the Incarnation must have been secure 
in the impregnable position it occupied behind the entrenchments 
of the four Councils. These had advanced with such regular 
progress towards the perfecting of the Faith, and had evolved so 
thorough a dogmatic statement of the truths regarding our blessed 
Saviour, that the grateful heart spontaneously bows in adoration 
of the Lord, whose providence so kindly provided for the neces- 
sities of later generations in giving His Church at that early age 
so complete a system of formulated doctrine. 

As soon as we turn from Chalcedon to the study of the Fifth 
Council, we lose the interest which springs from the source just 
mentioned. AVe must not forget, however, that the General 
Councils did not have as their sole aim the settling of the Faith 
for unborn generations, but were even more necessary for their 
own age than for ours. They were necessitated by the urgency 
of the immediate occasion, and, while technically useless, may have 
been of the very highest practical benefit. For example, though, 
after the continuous integrity of the two natures has been settled, 
it may seem ridiculous for any one who admits the correctness 
of that decision to insist that the human will, the most essential 
attribute of a free agent, was absorbed in the divine, yet a due re- 
gard for the souls of the uneducated and of the unstable may require 
that a novel teaching of that kind should be specifically denounced. 
Therefore we may not rashly pronounce the remaining councils 
unnecessary, but ought to suspend our judgments until all the 
circumstances of the case have passed in review. As regards our- 



218 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

selves, too, let us remember that our convictions do not always 
servilely attend upon the steps of logic. Perhaps, while satisfied 
in our understandings by the action of the first four general coun- 
cils, we will experience, as we thread the mazes that still remain, 
and take a rapid survey of the strong redoubts constructed by the 
Second and Third Councils of Constantinople, a marked increase 
of confidence, a certain strengthening of our convictions. If such 
good results accrue even to us from the confirmation of what had 
been already decided, let us not despise these two synods as hav- 
ing been superfluous. 

Nearly a century elapsed before the first movement was made 
towards the calling of a fifth council. Councils had come to be 
looked upon as dangerous things, as more likely to w T iden a breach 
than to close it ; this was a harsh and a mistaken view to take of 
them, but yet one to which the conduct of assembled dignitaries 
had often given too much color. Even after Justinian had begun 
to entertain the thought of once more evoking the voice of the 
Church, he shrank from the hazard of convening an assembly, and 
preferred to adopt the plan, which had already been tried, of ob- 
taining the aggregate sentiment of the episcopate by a collation 
of private opinions given in reply to a circular letter. Such a 
measure might have been pardonable, had it been honorably car- 
ried out, as an honest substitute for the more regular method ; but 
when it involved bribery and intimidation, it was inexcusable. 
Are deliberative assemblies useless, in the Church or elsewhere ? 
Can public affairs be just as well administered by a hundred legis- 
lators who stay at home and correspond with each other, as by 
those same men duly met together and consulting with one an- 
other in open session, or, if the case demands it, in secret conclave % 
Shall not men who are under solemn obligations to search for the 
very best means of extricating a nation from between the horns of 
an unpleasant dilemma, be encouraged to debate the subject, even 
at the risk of acting upon each other occasionally like flint and 
steel? What despot, hampered by an elective chamber, would 
not hail with loud acclamation the theory that he may neglect to 
call the delegates together, and may consult them by letters ? An 
end there is at once to all outspokenness and independence. 
The ruler's imagination easily calls up the numberless resources 
w 7 hich power can bring to bear upon isolated individuality. Say, 
for instance, that a particular member proves refractory, and dis- 



THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 219 

plays a courage that does not blench. Why ! How simple will 
be the task of representing to him that every one else has con- 
sented with complacence, and that he alone stands out, to ap- 
proach him with this or that insidious temptation that may be 
supposed best adapted to shake his inflexibility, to whisper threat 
upon threat that might well chill the blood of the boldest ! In a 
great gathering, on the other hand, the weak see that they are 
supported, the most mercenary that they are watched, the coura- 
geous that their fortitude inspires others ; while the acute intel- 
lects discern difficulties, reasons, and devices which the dull would 
overlook a thousand times, and the powerful speakers eloquently 
and persuasively address ears that would be impervious to all un- 
spoken language. The tyrant trembles when the popular assembly 
meets in his capital, and anxiously awaits the chance of proroguing 
it : so shakes heresy with the palsy of fear when a multitude of 
Christian fathers sits in solemn conclave, and would hug itself 
in an ecstasy of self-congratulation could it dismiss them to 
their homes to fall an easy prey, each man separately, to its 
machinations. 

The controversy to decide which the council was summoned is 
said to have been excited, not by a man who honestly believed in 
the error attacked, but by one who wished to draw off attention 
from himself and his friends, so that they might be permitted to 
pursue, without molestation or annoyance, their chosen path, even 
if it led them away from the truth and from safety. Although 
indigenous to Egypt, the ideas which Origen had so ably defended 
made their way into Asia, and struck deep root in various dis- 
tricts, and among others in Palestine. While the early Church 
had not discountenanced the high allegorical or extreme mystical 
method of interpreting Scripture, which neglected the letter of 
the text and sought for all sorts of recondite meanings supposed 
to lurk beneath the exterior, it had been disposed to frown upon 
some of the results which the mighty brain of that strange being 
educed through the method he had improved, at least, if not in- 
vented. Prominent among these was a tenet which has always 
sounded very sweetly in the ear of the godless, and has extended 
its sway over many a pious, but weak, heart that has recoiled 
from the horror of the blazing pit, and sought to deliver even the 
worst from that dreadful doom. Origen ventured to advocate the 
idea that punishment is only temporary, and is always inflicted 



220 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

with a view to the purgation and reformation of the offender. 
Embracing the strange notion that the hardened criminal, who has 
converted into curses all the mercies which the All-merciful scat- 
tered along his earthly path with such lavish hand, can be re- 
claimed by the stings of remorse, — that one who has been obsti- 
nately deaf to the pleadings of the Holy Spirit of God is likely to 
be lured into righteousness by the horrible execrations and detest- 
able ribaldry of the damned, — the Adamantine skillfully emascu- 
lated the vigorous threats and warnings of the written word in 
order to teach the final restoration to happiness both of lost souls 
and of the rebel angels. Origenism, over which Jerome and Ru- 
finus had, in the latter years of the fourth century, thrust and 
parried with almost equal skill and determination through many 
tedious volumes, survived at the beginning of the sixth; nor had 
time stolen the charms which enabled it to command the homage 
of devoted champions. In Palestine it had won, about the year 
520, the enthusiastic support of the monastic society called the 
New Laura. As the other monks were generally pronounced anti- 
Origenists, we might anticipate that violent disturbances would 
spread among the lauras, or communities of monks, leading some- 
times to bloodshed. The patriarch Peter, powerless to allay the 
commotion, brought the matter before the emperor, who was glad 
enough to have the opportunity of exhibiting his knowledge of 
theological subjects, and his art in adjusting controversies of that 
description. It is said that Justinian, in a letter to Mennas, patri- 
arch of Constantinople, made the ludicrous mistake of charging 
Origen with plagiarism from a man who flourished later than the 
great Alexandrian, and gave his name to the Manichaeans. At 
Justinian's suggestion, fifteen anathemas were pronounced by a 
Constantinopolitan synod against the teachings of the Adaman- 
tine. There were, at this time, two staunch Origenists at court, 
whose principles, however, were not so strict as to forbid their 
temporizing, or even committing a crime very near akin to per- 
jury, in order to gain their ends. Theodore Ascidas and Domi- 
tian, two Palestinian abbots, lately promoted to bishoprics, but 
usually residing in the imperial city, possessed great influence over 
Justinian. By signing the anathemas, they not only consulted 
their own temporal welfare, but placed themselves in a position to 
advance the interests of their party. While casting about for the 
most feasible plan of diverting the public gaze from his own 



TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 221 

faction, Theodore's shrewdness and his hatred for the Nestorians 
combined to suggest the expediency of raising another outcry 
against that sect. 'No better artifice could have been contrived. The 
old opposition to Chalcedon still smouldered, alarming Christendom 
now and again with flames which shot upwards from the slumber- 
ing crater and reddened the whole heavens ; and an earnest and 
laudable desire to regain the Acephali of Alexandria reigned in the 
royal bosom. It would not have answered to assail the Council 
directly, but the course was open of suggesting that the animosity 
against it arose from its having seemed to countenance JSTestorian- 
ism by admitting into communion men who were suspected of 
favoring that heresy. In selecting those three Antiochene doc- 
tors, — Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Ibas of 
Edessa, — for condemnation, Ascidas was true to the traditions 
of the Egyptian school, and also reechoed a cry which had long 
resounded through the churches. They were not, however, all 
upon an equal footing, for the orthodoxy of the last two had been 
recognized at Chalcedon, which circumstance effectually protected 
them from the anathemas of all who did not wish to appear in the 
field against that council ; while no such shield covered the vener- 
able and unprotected head of Theodore. The latter, therefore, 
might be personally anathematized without injury to the memory 
of Chalcedon, but the persons of the other two were sacred from 
attack. The only scheme for reaching them would be to affix a 
stigma to their writings. Some of those were accordingly selected 
which had been written before they had abjured their errors, cer- 
tain compositions of Theodoret directed against Cyril, and a letter 
of Ibas to a Persian named Maris. The artifice of Ascidas suc- 
ceeded so well, that when, in 544, Justinian published an edict in 
which he had collected into Three Chapters (as they were called) 
the writings of Theodore, Theoderet, and Ibas, and pronounced 
anathemas upon them and their defenders, and upon Theodore of 
Mopsuestia himself, Origenism vanished from sight like a taper 
before the blaze of a conflagration. 

The antipathy to these men was strangely persistent, they not 
having been founders, nor very prominent leaders of the sect, and 
one of them, indeed, having died the very year that Anastasins 
first attacked the Theotokos. Two of them had publicly re- 
nounced their errors, but mankind is usually very reluctant to 
believe in the sincerity of the repentance of those who have once 



222 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

incurred its displeasure. Though unable to deny that Tbeodoret 
did hold at one period of his life sentiments not strictly orthodox, 
we cannot refrain from paying a tribute to the almost unexampled 
moderation of his conduct. In an age of fierce strife, when the 
very best were being drawn into unseemly contentions, and goaded 
into rash, unjust, and violent deeds in behalf of a faction, this 
man appears to have preserved a calm and collected demeanor, 
even in the midst of a tumultuous assembly that was almost on 
the point of laying hands upon him, and to have placed such re- 
straint upon his own unruly passions as to acknowledge his errors 
upon being convinced that the Catholic Church, and not he, was 
in the right. Theodoret's recantation may have been the result 
of cowardice, or the work of self-interest : if so, it was a most dis- 
graceful act. Such a supposition, however, gains no color from 
the previous conduct of the bishop, nor is it borne out by anything 
we can trace in his after life : on the contrary, all the evidence 
seems to favor the view that it was the honest deed of a frank, coura- 
geous, humble soul, turning away in self-abasement from its errors, 
and anxious to atone for the evil of its previous example by mak- 
ing open confession. Thus viewed, the conduct of the execrated 
bishop at Chalcedon, when his voice was lost amid the angry cries 
of his auditors, becomes grand in the extreme ; while the man 
himself rises into a hero. He is not driven into flight and revolt, 
he does not suffer himself to be thrown off his balance, but lifts 
his hoary head far above his enemies in placid majesty, and quietly 
bides his time, unshaken in resolution, unfaltering in humility, 
and undaunted in spirit. 

As Justinian is to play so active a part in the new controversy, 
his life and character may well engage our attention, in order that 
we may know with what kind of a man the Church then had to 
deal. The first of his obscure Dacian family to wear the purple 
was an uncle who, having deserted Sardica on foot with two com- 
panions, and been enrolled among the huge and mighty guards- 
men of Leo, fought his way upwards till, at the death of the em- 
peror Anastasius, he had become their commander, and was in a 
position to aspire to the throne. Ashamed of the ignorance by 
which he felt himself fettered, Justin resolved that his nephew 
and successor should enjoy the advantages of a thorough educa- 
tion. Like Theodosius II., Justinian was a close student, but not 
endowed by nature with any remarkable degree of talent. For- 



THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 223 

timate in such generals as Narses and Belisarius, and such a law- 
yer as Tribonian, his reign was made illustrious by many brilliant 
victories, and by those marvels of jurisprudence, the Code, the 
Pandects, and the Institutes; but the monarch himself fails to 
excite our admiration. His private life was a strange medley of 
ascetic rigor and licentious indulgence, and his public administra- 
tion disgraced by frequent manifestations of cruelty and rapacious- 
ness. The treatment awarded that pillar of his throne, the mag- 
nanimous and invincible Belisarius, after age had weakened the 
dreaded arm of that hero, needed not the assistance of Procopius's 
satire to consign Justinian's memory to the well-merited reproach 
of posterity. Perhaps no sovereign ever made worse selection of 
a consort than he did in offering his hand to the infamous prosti- 
tute, whose elevation made the name of Theodora more detested 
among the virtuous than even that of Antonina, Belisarius's 
shameless spouse. The emperor and empress arrayed themselves 
in opposing ranks upon the all-engrossing subject of religion, Jus- 
tinian being a decided Catholic, until in extreme old age he turned 
aside into the forbidden paths of Incorruptibilism, and Theodora, 
on the contrary, never swerving from her allegiance to the Mono- 
physite party. Some suppose that motives of state induced the 
pair to become ostensible patrons of the two parties, and profess 
to discover proof of this in the fact that in general the wifely in- 
fluence of the empress was unbounded. 

The edict of 544 commanded generally obedience, obtaining 
the signatures of a large number of Eastern bishops, though not a 
few of them displayed much reluctance to endorse its sentiments. 
Some declined to subscribe, and cheerfully submitted to banish- 
ment. The four patriarchs overcame their repugnance with great 
difficulty, and Hennas covered his retreat with the extraordinary 
stipulation that he should be free to erase his signature in the 
event of the Roman bishops not concurring. From two quarters, 
however, arose a more determined opposition. 

More than a century previous the craft of ^Etius had stung 
the general of Africa to revolt against his ungrateful sovereign 
and open negotiations with Gonderic, the Vandal king, who was 
then engaged in the task of subduing Spain. The forces of those 
barbarians under the redoubtable leadership of Genseric, who had 
succeeded to his half -or other, easily overthrew the troops which 
Boniface, too late repentant, could marshal against them, and 



224 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

soon overran North Africa. Then dawned a dark day for the 
church of Cyprian and Augustine. The tyrant was a bitter Arian, 
and taught his race to wield the biting scourge of persecution with 
merciless fanaticism. The faith of Athanasius and the Councils 
was proscribed. The fathers of the Church were insulted, ban- 
ished, tortured, slain. To the horrors which avarice, licentious- 
ness, and cruelty perpetrate under cover of war were added the 
still greater sufferings inflicted by religious hatred. We feel our 
breasts heave with pity for the down-trodden people and oppressed 
church. Yet mark the end ! Genseric's Yandals amass plunder 
and live in luxury upon the labor and wealth of others ; and in 
three generations have become so enervated that the once invinci- 
ble hordes are dispersed by the onset of Belisarius like the mists 
of morning before the rising wind. On the other hand, the per- 
secuted Church has clothed herself, during those generations, in 
clean and shining robes, washed and anointed herself, and resumed 
the glorious beauty of an earlier period. Scant fare and a life of 
hardship and exposure under the blue canopy of heaven and amid 
the healthful breezes that swept over plain and mountain, have 
restored the delicate outline and radiant purity which had fled 
from a countenance swollen with the surfeits of indolence and 
gluttony. In the midst of peril and privation, the African church 
had learned to be loyal, courageous, and firm, so that when Justin- 
ian bade her swerve aside from what she believed to be the path, 
of rectitude, many of her sons rose in their might and claimed the 
privilege of serving God rather than man. Some, doubtless, had 
practiced the disgraceful art of turning their coats, according as 
this sect or that happened to be in the ascendant, till they had 
come to wear any badge with placid servility, and were ready now 
to denounce the Three Chapters in unmeasured terms; but there 
were not wanting many prepared to stand shoulder to shoulder 
with Pontianus in resisting imperial usurpation, and let the despot 
of Asia know that the freedmen of Christ were slaves of no man, 
whatever his power and however vast his pretensions. 

Resistance also came from the north of the Mediterranean. 
In elevating Yigilius to the episcopal throne of old Home, Theo- 
dora had advanced a man equally versed with herself in the art 
of double-dealing. Subservient enough, doubtless, while an hum- 
ble deacon in the train of Agapetus, with an eye directed upon his 
own interests, no sooner did the compliant and obsequious cleric 



THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 225 

close his fingers upon the coveted reward of his hypocrisy, than he 
forgot the return that was expected by the royal mistress who had 
so highly favored him, and, feeling himself occupant of the highest 
position in the Church, resolved still to take counsel of ambition. 
The Roman see, however, was not as independent of Constanti- 
nople as it had been in the days of Leo. The sceptre of Italy, 
seized by the barbarian after it had dropped from the nerveless 
grasp of Augustulus, was now being torn from his clutch by that 
illustrious general who restored to the imperial arms almost the 
lustre of their brightest sheen. Hence Yigilius could not assume 
the independent tone that had characterized some of his immedi- 
ate predecessors as high dignitaries of another realm. Indeed, it 
is not unlikely that he would readily have stooped still to court 
the favor of Justinian, had not the temper of his clergy and people 
been so strongly opposed to such a step that he could not venture 
to follow the bent of his own inclinations. That he took the course 
he did was owing, not certainly, to the strength of his convictions, 
but rather to the determined stand made by the Africans, the 
bishops of Illyria and Dalmatia, and others, against what they be- 
lieved to be encroachments upon the domain of religion. 

Not easily to be turned from his purpose, the emperor, also 
prompted, it is said, in taking this measure by fear of another 
schism of Old and New Rome, summoned the western patriarch 
to Constantinople; in the neighborhood of which city he was 
obliged to spend more than seven years. Yigilius soon weakly 
signed a secret covenant to condemn the Three Chapters, at- 
tempted in vain to draw over to that side the members of a synod 
which was held at the imperial city in 548, and then imitated the 
example of his sovereign by issuing a paper of compromise, which 
is known as his Judication, and endeavoring to obtain the separate 
signatures of the bishops. The spirited resistance of North Africa 
and Illyria to the requisitions of Justinian at length awoke a 
corresponding courage within the vacillating bosom of the Latin, 
so that he positively refused to subscribe a second profession of 
faith, which the emperor put forth in 551, and threatened all 
who should affix their names with sentence of excommunica- 
tion. This bold defiance drove the patriarch from Constanti- 
nople to Chalcedon and the church of St. Euphemia, in which 
he found those benefits of sanctuary he had vainly sought in a 
metropolitan church ; from the very altar of which he had been 



226 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

dragged by the soldiers with a violence that just escaped burying 
him beneath its ruins. 

The Latins seemed tolerably united in their resistance. Datius 
of Milan was conspicuous as a leader of the opposition, and two 
of Yigilius's own attendant deacons did not hesitate in the matter 
of his Judicatum to go the length of even renouncing church-fel- 
lowship with their recreant chief. In Africa several names be- 
came illustrious. Pontianus has already been mentioned. "When 
the emperor's first edict reached Africa, lie replied to the effect 
that he and his fellow-bishops did not care to anathematize men 
who had already gone before the infallible Judge, or condemn 
writings of which they knew nothing ; and administered a solemn 
warning, in the true tone of a Jeremiah, to be very cautious how 
he disturbed the peace of God's people. Fulgentius Ferrandus 
had the honor of being consulted, though only a deacon, by Yigil- 
ius through two delegates, who were dispatched to obtain his 
valuable and learned opinion upon the matters in dispute, when 
the imperial pressure was first brought to bear upon that fickle- 
minded Roman ; and pronounced clearly and boldly against the 
edict on the grounds that it derogated from the authority of the 
Fourth Council, that it passed judgment upon those who were no 
longer amenable to human law, and that it aspired to the dignity 
and absolute domination of inspired Scripture. Reparatus of 
Carthage, after presiding over a synod which presumed to excom- 
municate the successor of St. Peter, went to Constantinople for 
the purpose of attending a council in 551, and was deposed and 
banished because neither bribes, smooth speeches, nor threats 
could shake his fidelity. Facundus of Hermiane, an outspoken 
delegate at one of the synods, and the author of a remarkable 
treatise written in defense of the Three Chapters and addressed 
to Justinian, whom he rebukes for intruding into a province 
which does not belong to the civil ruler, perhaps deserves to 
close the list. 

The main objections brought forward against condemning the 
Three Chapters may be ranged under two heads, — respect for the 
authority of Chalcedon, and repugnance to anathematizing the 
dead. A third has already been mentioned, but, inasmuch as the 
decree of Justinian never was elevated into the position he claimed 
for it, this objection being leveled against that claim was only of 
transient importance. As concerns the former of the two above 



THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 227 

specified, the authority of Chalcedon certainly was not impugned, 
even indirectly, unless it was so in the matter of Ibas's letter ; for 
Theodore's writings had been in no way sanctioned by that coun- 
cil, nor had those of Theodoret against which the decree was 
aimed. The assembled bishops had done little more for their 
brother of Cyrus than merely to accept his repentance upon his 
abjuring JNTestorianism. And as for the letter, the honor of Chal- 
cedon was saved even in regard to it by treating it as a base imi- 
tation of the one which had been approved by that synod. This 
point must be admitted to have been one of some delicacy : the 
document under dispute may have been wholly a forgery or a 
greatly corrupted copy of the genuine one ; and it is sure that the 
Fifth Council would never have consented to cast it out upon any 
other supposition. Yet we are not compelled to show that such a 
forgery actually had been made, in order to rescue our theory of 
General Councils from total overthrow. The confirmation of the 
sentiments and expressions in the letter was not a matter of great 
moment to the world at large. Beyond a fraternal interest, the 
great Church, east and west, did not care very much whether 
Theodore, Theodoret, and Ibas were orthodox or not. What 
concerned it was whether the doctrine of one composite nature 
was true or false, and that was it upon which the attention of the 
provincial churches was concentrated, to the neglect of the minor 
matters which came before the council. That was the great ques- 
tion under discussion, and it was large enough to eclipse most 
others. It is not to be supposed that an (Ecumenical Council is 
authoritative as to all its decisions : that would be the case, to be 
sure, did the full power and right to decide lie in the council 
itself, but not if the ultimate appeal is to the judgment of the en- 
tire mass. If it is the ratification that constitutes the oecumenicity, 
then it appears rational enough to limit the authoritativeness to 
the matters actually passed upon by the Church at large; which is 
equivalent to circumscribing it by the boundaries of those topics 
which can be supposed momentous enough, under all the circum- 
stances, to have engrossed public notice. The letter of Ibas at 
the time of the former gathering was not generally known ; it was 
probably only incidentally brought before the assemblage as bearing 
upon the propriety of restoring the deposed bishop of Edessa, and 
certainly obtained no mention in the formulary of faith : therefore, 
we cannot think that the orthodoxy of the document came at all 



228 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

before the churches. Of course, Chalcedon might have been com- 
mitted to it in such a way as almost to stand or fall with it : for- 
tunately, however, it did not entrust its fate to so frail a craft, 
but left that perilous enterprise to the succeeding council, which 
did stake its good name, not, however, upon the seaworthiness of 
the bark, but upon its unseaworthiness. The Second Council of 
Constantinople, in bearing witness so energetically against that 
ill-starred writing, lifted it by main force into an importance which 
hardly belonged to it ; and, had that synod made a mistake regard- 
ing it, we would hardly hope to obtain a hearing for such a plea 
as we are now gratuitously offering in behalf of Chalcedon, — one, 
perhaps, which would grate upon the ears of Ferrandus and 
Facundus, were they now alive. The Africans, with all their 
independence and fidelity, seem to have labored under two mis- 
conceptions, pardonable enough to a church that had endured the 
trials and suffered the deprivations of a long persecution. In the 
first place, they mistook, apparently, the nature of the action 
taken by Chalcedon upon the writings of Theodoret and Ibas ; 
and, in the second place, they did not manifest a very accurate 
understanding of the doctrine of General Councils, lending coun- 
tenance to the notion that the final authority resides in the council 
itself. If we should pass a general stricture upon the conciliar 
age, and say that, while it acted correctly upon the true theory of 
(Ecumenicity, it did not thoroughly comprehend that theory, we 
would be thought by many to have made a damaging admission. 
"Well, then, so much the worse for the theory, since the facts can 
hardly be denied. If sore beset by our antagonists, we will take 
refuge behind the general truth that people often obey with 
tolerable exactness a principle of which they know almost nothing. 
Is it necessary, in order for a man to preserve a perpendicular 
attitude, that he should be familiar with the rule of mechanics, 
that a line dropped from his centre of gravity must not fall out- 
side of the base ? The subject never having been exhaustively, 
or even attentively studied, the common language and the com- 
mon thought about it were liable to the reproach of vagueness 
and inadequateness, and sometimes, perhaps, of downright error. 
While disposed to treat the Africans with all possible respect, 
we cannot coincide with their second objection, any more than 
their first. It is contemptible, most assuredly, to persecute the 
dead. He who will defame one that has lain down to rest in 



THE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 229 

peace and honor, in order to gratify inextinguishable hate or to 
magnify himself at his expense, deserves the pillory of universal 
detestation. It is a shameful deed unnecessarily to reveal even 
the truth about the departed, should the disclosure involve dis- 
creditable transactions. But are there no imaginable circum- 
stances that will justify the throwing of blame upon one whose 
earthly account has been closed ? If the doctrinal errors of a 
religious teacher have led multitudes astray, is it wrong to lay 
before the deceived evidence proving that the heresiarch's private 
life was not quite so blameless as he had wished to make it 
appear? The rights of praising and of blaming being correla- 
tives, is it not true that the title to one involves that to the other? 
Now, men that have gone far beyond the reach of earthly tribu- 
nals are canonized, formally among some, actually among all. 
The obloquy and detraction, which not infrequently cling to a 
great and good soul through his life, perish with the faction which 
sought to trample him in the mud, and then the impartial judg- 
ment of posterity hastens to envelop his ghost in an aureole of 
glory. Is not this a commendable, though tardy, deed ? Or did 
the world sin in hallowing the fetters which the tyranny of a 
jealous sovereign bound upon the hands which had given him a 
new continent ? What is fair and proper on one side can hardly 
be unfair and improper on the other. If it be allowable and com- 
mendable to canonize a dead man who deserves such treatment, 
how can it be wrong to condemn and anathematize another who 
merits such opprobrium ? J^o attempt is thereby made to forestall 
the decision of infinite justice, nor to punish the departed soul ; 
but the whole aim of the sentence is to correct the ideas of the 
living, and to warn them against participating in the errors of the 
condemned. If Origen actually did teach a pernicious heresy 
concerning the future of unrepentant sinners, or the bishop of 
Mopsuestia did dishonor the Son of God by dividing Him into 
two persons, what is to hinder one of us, or all of us, or a national 
church, or the great corporate body, from declaring that he was 
to be blamed for so doing? To excommunicate a person with 
whom no outward communion can be held, is ridiculous, it may 
be ; but to pronounce him reprobate, which is all that such an 
anathema amounts to, is a reasonable act, and one that may be 
conducive to the very best results. For such a course of action 
the fortunate ingenuity of Eutychius, when only a resident com- 



230 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

missioner at Constantinople, discovered a Scriptural precedent, 
which so greatly delighted Justinian that he soon promoted him 
to the patriarchate of that metropolis : after the prophets of Baal 
had been consigned to their tombs, Josiah, that pious king, had 
their remains exhumed and burned. 

Soon after the accession of the new patriarch, and in the year 
553, all the Eastern patriarchs and other bishops, to the number of 
one hundred and sixty-five in all, including five from Africa, met 
at Constantinople, and organized themselves into the Fifth Gen- 
eral Council. Vigilius resisted all solicitations to attend, and 
would doubtless have shared the doom of Reparatus, the heroic 
shepherd of Carthage, and been sent into banishment, had not 
the emperor feared that such action would have rent the Church 
in twain once more. He could more safely be punished by ex- 
communication, and was accordingly, at the emperor's request, 
stricken from the diptychs. The collected wisdom of Christen- 
dom not only condemned the Roman bishop, — in strange forget- 
fulness of the prerogatives which we are told were always his, — 
but adopted the imperial policy in general, condemning the Three 
Chapters and all their adherents, together with Theodore of Mop- 
suestia, but sparing the memories of Theodoret and Ibas. The 
council having thus approved the course chosen by the imperious 
ruler, it still remained to be seen whether the approval would be 
ratified by the West. Yigilius, succumbing at last to the dreari- 
ness of his prolonged confinement, and to the dread of worse 
results should he persist in his opposition, stooped, the next year, 
to a most humiliating recantation and submission, gaining thereby 
the long-coveted permission to return home. As he died on the 
journey at Syracuse, his archdeacon, Pelagius, succeeded to the 
vacant seat through the influence of his royal master, who knew 
him to be a warm friend of the late council. Rome proceeded to 
enforce acceptance of the synodical decrees by measures more con- 
sonant with the nature and spirit of temporal sovereignty than of 
that mild rule which alone ought to have place in the kingdom of 
Christ. The repugnance of the whole "West to the Constantino- 
politan decrees, gave birth to a persistent and firm rejection of 
them, which for awhile survived the deposition and banishment 
of leading bishops and the substitution of creatures of Justinian's. 
Milan and Ravenna cut themselves loose from the apostolic see, 
and, but for the terrors of the Lombard invasion, would doubtless 



TEE SECOND COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 231 

have stood out, and forced the patriarch to come over on their 
side. With better fortune or loftier courage, Aquileia, disdaining 
to yield when once she had undertaken the contest, erected herself 
into a patriarchate, and maintained her independence for nearly a 
century and a half. Nevertheless, the decrees of the Second 
Council of Constantinople gradually won their way into universal 
recognition. 

Such is the history of the Fifth General Council, and it con- 
tains much to provoke severe comment. As its decrees did not 
directly determine anything of doctrinal importance, we could see 
it stricken from the list of (Ecumenical synods with less regret 
than any of the others. It is always sad to mark the right resort- 
ing to wrongful methods in order to triumph ; the truth of God, 
revealed by Christ, entrusted to a divinely organized Church, and 
guarded by the Holy Spirit, calling upon the secular arm to sup- 
port the shaking ark. To exact of people possessed of average 
intelligence and independence that they should attach much im- 
portance to a consent wrung from churches by outrageous tyranny, 
and call that final agreement of coercion the voice of the Spirit, 
or even the reliable testimony of the ecclesiastical corporation, 
exposes one to the charge of insulting their reason. Nevertheless, 
there is, of course, another side to it all, and the view from another 
stand-point may reduce us to something like patience with a theory 
we were about to discard. If imperial interposition eventually 
extorted assent, was it not due to imperial interference, in the first 
place, that any extortion became necessary ? Suppose that, when 
Pontianus had professed ignorance of the Three Chapters, instead 
of Justinian's continuing to insist peremptorily upon the submis- 
sion of the Africans, the comprehensive and sedate intellect of a 
Gregory ISTazianzen, or the powerful and massive mind of an 
Athanasius, had undertaken to enlighten and mildly persuade the 
noble leaders of that sorely-tried portion of the Christian Church. 
Is is not probable that a satisfactory settlement of the whole 
controversy could in that way have been reached without re- 
course to dungeons and deserts ? Is it necessary to believe that 
the Spirit of Christ had forsaken His Church, because the cor- 
rupt ways of the secular world had invaded it ? Is it incon- 
ceivable that the various influences which emanated from the 
throne may have been made to counterbalance each other, so that 
out of the conflict of errors and sins truth and righteousness 



232 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

were evolved ? May we not boldly affirm that, had the opposition 
of the West been really based upon sound principles, it would 
never have yielded to the pressure of despotism, secular or eccle- 
siastical, but have struggled on to a final victory, with the invinci- 
ble courage and irrepressible ardor of conscious and divinely- 
sustained right ? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 

As the serious believer views with trembling amazement the 
utter indifference to the things of an invisible world displayed by 
many whose doom for eternity hangs upon a thread, so the un- 
believing, the worldly, the abandoned, look with profound con- 
tempt upon the zeal that sometimes marks the soldier of the cross. 
To him who rejects the immortality of the soul and ridicules all 
distinctions between virtue and vice, it must seem supremely 
ludicrous that any one should put himself out of his way, even so 
much as a single step, for the visionary purpose of conforming to 
an imaginary law. To the man who denies the existence of a 
God, it is the height of folly to dispute about His nature, and to 
the one who scoffs at the idea that the Infinite became finite, it is 
little short of insanity to reason about the personality and natures 
of our Lord and Saviour. If the Christian thought it right to 
retort in kind upon these men who, standing on the icy pinnacles 
of their pride, look down through pale moonlight upon the busy 
scene where life and death struggle for the eternal victory, it 
would be easy for him to turn around upon the geologist, for 
instance, with a sneer at his making so much ado over the mark 
of a skeleton in a rock, or the astronomer, with a smile at his in- 
fatuation in traveling thousands of miles and spending months of 
time in order to rectify the length of a transit by a second or two ; 
but he has been taught not to render railing for railing. The 
astronomer, the geologist, the chemist, the grammarian are not 
chargeable with folly in expending their energies upon the most 
minute investigations. u De minimis non curat lex " (the law does 
not concern itself about very small matters), is a maxim which 
must be very strictly construed, since, in the trial of a cause or in 
the search after evidence, in governing a realm or defending a 
fortress, in computing the parallax of Sirius or deciphering a 



234: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

monolith, the very smallest error may produce most disastrous 
consequences. The tone of mind which surveys with lofty pity 
the historic battle-fields of religion, sighing over the folly that 
could contend in such a strife, is an ancient one, one honorable 
not only for the hoariness of age, but for the high positions it has 
filled. In quite ancient times it sat upon the throne and wore the 
imperial robes, a sort of ecclesiastical Mayor of the palace to some 
of the best and most famous, as well as to some of the worst, sov- 
ereigns of the Roman Decadence. It was natural that the mon- 
arch who had to dispute with Chosroes and the chagan for the 
possession of his palace, should deem it of more importance that 
his subjects should present an unbroken front to the enemy than 
that their faith should be strictly orthodox. The Greek empire 
was surrounded with powerful foes, and the day was gone by 
when its terror affrighted the nations. The name Roman, instead 
of falling upon the ear with an awful sound, had become con- 
temptible, and was used by the barbarians as the basest of epi- 
thets. Even w T hen the valor and skill of Belisarius and the 
eunuch Parses restored to the Roman armies something of their 
pristine renown and taught the invaders to fly before their 
awakened wrath, their imperial master felt that his triumph must 
be short-lived indeed, unless the internal dissensions of his own 
people could be allayed. So Justinian, more concerned for the 
preservation and increase of his own authority than for the pro- 
motion of His glory whom he acknowledged as his God, put 
forth his decree of compromise. Then followed the weak and 
impious Zeno with his Henoticon, as another compromise. 
Flushed with his victories in the far East, Heraclius returns to 
his palace, and, hopeful of equally brilliant success in other con- 
tests, issues a compromise, which is known as his Ecthesis. The 
hand of Constans II., red with fratricidal blood, writes a compro- 
mise that history calls a Type. Each of these attempts, so far 
from serving the end proposed by their authors, only widened the 
existing breach or created a new one, causing sometimes a schism, 
and sometimes a new sect, to spring up. The beatitude pro- 
nounced upon peace-makers was hardly needed to convice us that 
no nobler work can be undertaken by mortal man than that of 
appeasing strife. Yet it is on all sides confessed that too high a 
price can be paid for peace. It is not to be bought at the price 
of chains and slavery, either actual or metaphorical ; but the war 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 235 

of extermination, devastation, and utter ruin, is to be chosen 
rather. A lawful compromise between disputants may be very 
laudable : not so an accommodation which involves a surrender of 
any portion of the true faith. The sacred deposit was entrusted 
to the custody of the saints in order that they should preserve it 
pure, intact, and whole, not that they should permit the enemy 
to handle it and take from it what he chose. Even if the primary 
duty of Christians were to save souls, that would be accomplished 
best, not by throwing away the gospel of redemption, nor by con- 
senting to ignore any portion of it, but by fearlessly proclaiming 
and maintaining the whole of divinely-revealed truth, even though 
some parts thereof be extremely unpalatable to certain classes of 
people. Is it not better to alienate a class, than to rob all suc- 
ceeding generations of the saving knowledge which we are bound 
to transmit as perfect in all respects as we received it ? More- 
over, if we thought that the salvation of the entire race could be 
achieved by the blotting out of one single fact or principle, which 
had concentrated upon itself the ineradicable hostility of a large 
proportion of mankind, even then it would be high treason against 
the King of Kings for the Church to suffer it to be erased from 
her standards or passed over in silence by her preachers. The 
deadly warfare between truth and error admits of no compromise. 
The heresy which next extensively troubled the Church was 
in itself an attempt at compromise. The council of Chalcedon 
had decided that there exist in Christ two distinct and perfect 
natures, combined, without absorption, change, or fusion, in one 
personality. It was hardly to be supposed that either of these 
natures remained quiescent. Some quiescence of the divine na- 
ture was doubtless included in His abstaining from the putting 
forth of its energies in His own behalf to relieve Himself, for in- 
stance, from hunger; but that was no more than the restraint 
which divine'goodness must put upon itself whenever it permits 
the innocent to suffer : in the abstract, it is hardly more conceiv- 
able that God should cease to act than that He should cease to 
exist. As for the human nature, that was assumed for the very 
purpose that it might energize. If, then, the two natures were to 
be active, and they were distinct natures, it would follow that 
their activities must be separate. The unity of individuality no 
more involves the unity of operation of the two natures than the 
unipersonality of man constitutes breathing a function of his soul, 



236 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

or thinking a function of his circulatory system. It will be re- 
plied that man's thinking is a double energizing, and that this 
can be proved from the fact that bodily disease disorders the mind. 
But such an objection cannot be sustained, inasmuch as the spirit- 
ual nature within man can rise superior to almost every bodily 
affection, and manifest the utmost strength and healthfulness while 
the poor frame lies emaciated with the ravages of fever, or racked 
with intensest pain. The mind employs physical organs as its 
servants, but does not permit them, in the sense in which we are 
now speaking, to modify its own action. Just as a nature which 
possesses no distinctive qualities is no nature at all, so qualities 
which do not separately energize, are no qualities at all. If two 
natures are fused, entirely separate action is, of course, impossible 
to them ; if they are only partially commingled, the activities 
that ensue are energizings of the third somewhat, as far as the com- 
mingling extends ; and, on the other hand, if the operation under 
scrutiny is found to be the conjoint action of two natures, it inev- 
itably follows that these have ceased to be separate, and become 
more or less commixed. Cannot two men produce a result of 
their joint skill, without being run into each other like two streams 
of molten metal poured into one trough % some reader exclaims in 
surprise. Of course they can, but they cannot strike the same 
blow with two different hammers : they may bring their hammers 
down with equal strength upon the same spot, and cause an aggre- 
gate result ; but for all that the two sledges struck each its own 
blow. In this illustration each workman represents a nature, the 
hammers are qualities, and the blow an energizing : whence we 
conclude that if the energizing is single, so is the quality which 
produced it, and the nature which lies behind the quality ; and 
if the energizing is compound, so is the nature whence it came. 

It appears that a work then in high regard, and attributed to 
Dionysius the Areopagite, contained the expression evepyeia 6eav- 
dputrj (a Theandric energy or operation), as predicable of Christ. 
A Theandric energy being, in plain English, the energy of a God- 
man, it is evident that such a phrase could be used in regard to 
Christ, who was the God-man, without meaning to imply that the 
action itself belonged to both natures. We are here reminded 
of the old dispute about the Theotokos, and that the epithet, as 
applied to the Yirgin Mary, signified not that she was the parent 
of the divine nature of Christ, but that from her came the human 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 237 

nature of Him who is at once man and God. Certain unwar- 
rantable inferences were, however, drawn from the above expres- 
sion, and the doctrine invented that, although the two natures 
remained distinct, their operations were conjoint. Perhaps the 
idea can be conveyed by using the analogy of two gases, like oxy- 
gen and hydrogen, which, upon being forced from separate re- 
ceivers through a single stop-cock, issue in combination, having 
resolved themselves into a third somewhat, which is a mechanical 
mixture or a chemical compound, as the case may be. 

Why the will should have been selected as the special field of 
dispute is a question of some obscurity, since, if any operation 
was theandric, all must have been, and the human and the divine 
emotions and intellectual processes must have been blended, as 
well as the volitions of the Saviour. Still, as the will is that 
capacity which lies nearest the inmost throne and centre of indi- 
viduality, and to which moral responsibility attaches itself most 
firmly ; and as the Predestinarian controversy had brought into 
marked prominence the nature, value, and strength of the human 
will, and its relation to the divine, it is not extraordinaiy that in 
an age of vague psychology a discussion concerning the character 
of the theandric operations should have revolved about the Will 
of our adorable Lord as a pivot. Thus the distinction gradually 
arose between those who believed in one will, — or Monothelites, 
as John Damascenus called them, — and the Dyothelites, or be- 
lievers in two wills. 

As soon as the controversy is narrowed down to the will of 
the Saviour, it has been greatly simplified. It is obvious to urge 
upon the Monothelites that their theory virtually removes all 
meritoriousness from His obedience, since that resides mainly in 
the overcoming of the obstacles interposed by a rebellious will, 
and the divine will of the Son cannot be supposed contrarient in 
the slightest degree to that of the Father. The will of a sinless 
human being may incline momentarily, at least, toward evil, 
though it never yields to the temptation ; but the will of God the 
Son cannot know a tendency to aberration, even as inappreciable as 
the tendency of our sun to rush out towards the orbit of Neptune. 
By bending His human will into a cheerful compliance with His 
Father's injunctions, Christ could be said to learn obedience by 
the things which He suffered ; but how His divine will, in any 
sort of combination whatever, could learn obedience, we can never 



238 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

understand till we comprehend the possibility of the All-wise 
increasing His store of wisdom, and the All-good improving in 
virtue. That part of the Catholic doctrine of the atonement, 
which requires a perfect obedience on the part of our great Rep- 
resentative, as a compensating weight to be set in the balances of 
eternal justice over against our disobedience, is irreconcilably hos- 
tile to a theory which removes His operations so far asunder from 
those of ordinary men as to make it no human obedience at all, — 
if, indeed, it does not quite rob it of the very name of obedience. 
Let him who still wavers between two opinions contemplate that 
solemn scene on the night of the betrayal, and listen to the cry, 
" Not as I will, but as thou wilt." 

Such was the grand doctrinal compromise by which it was 
attempted to bring the Monophysites back into the Church. It 
was an attempt to accomplish a philosophical impossibility, to 
express the method of contact of two separate natures. The 
problem of contact, or of the transmission of force from one body 
to another, has not yet even the hope of being solved. Nothing 
in nature is known to touch absolutely anything else. By apply- 
ing the microscope to the densest bodies, we will discover that 
their atoms are so far from lying contiguous that they are flying 
perpetually backwards and forwards with amazing velocity. It is 
not to be thought that when the cannon-ball strikes against solid 
granite, any one particle of the projectile really comes into contact 
with a particle of the rock ; nor even that the particles of air 
which are crushed by the awful concussion actually touch either 
substance. What, then, stops the immense mass in its rapid 
course? We wait for science to inform us. How does the mind 
act upon the body ? How can a physical chain of causes be set in 
motion by that which is wholly immaterial ? Let no one rashly 
follow the dramatic precedent of vowing not to break his fast till 
he has answered any one of these and similar questions, lest he 
should doom himself to a worse fate than that of a two-centuries' 
sleep. Now, precisely this same problem of contact was under- 
taken by the Monothelites. In the God-man, a single personality, 
coexisted two distinct natures. Unquestionably these natures 
acted upon each other and upon the personality to which they 
belonged ; but how was this done ? How shall that personality 
contrive, as it were, to shut off the influence of one nature while 
it places itself under that of the other? How, for example, could 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 239 

the blessed Saviour exclude from Himself His divine attributes 
while as a man he wrestled for man with the Devil in the wilder- 
ness, or to such an extent that He could profess His ignorance of 
the day of Judgment ? Who of sane mind can expect ever to 
understand such a mystery ? The facts are certain, that there was 
only a single personality, that there continued to coexist in it two 
separate and unaltered natures, and that each of these had its own 
appropriate mode of operation ; but how these facts are explaina- 
ble no one, we submit, need expect to understand till he has at 
least pierced the secrets of his own being, and informed an eager 
world how the spiritual essence of his own mind manages to con- 
vey its impulses to the material substance of his brain. 

The first twelve years of Heraclius's reign saw his dominions 
gradually shrink within themselves, till they comprised little more 
than the imperial city, only a few maritime cities and provinces 
in addition still acknowledging his sceptre. The Avars had inun- 
dated Thrace and dashed against the very walls of Constantinople. 
The Persians had engulfed Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Asia 
Minor, and were now surging and leaping in threatening proxim- 
ity to the defenses of Chalcedon. It seemed as though the proud 
metropolis must be crushed beneath the encountering tides, as a 
gallant ship is sometimes ground into fragments by the ice-floes 
of the Arctic seas. But her lord was equal to the occasion, slough- 
ing off at once the shameful garb of effeminate ease, and donning 
with alacrity the rough garments of the warrior. Taking counsel 
of that lofty daring which is not seldom the highest prudence, he 
left his capital in the state of siege, embarked his troops upon gal- 
leys and ploughed back again the furrows made by his adventur- 
ous keel when he had sailed up the Hellespont from Africa to 
dethrone the tyrant Phocas. The battle-field of Issus once more 
beheld a martial host. In several engagements the royal hero 
chastised the insolence of the invaders, and then established his 
winter-quarters on the banks of the Halys. Again entrusting his 
forces to the perilous deep, Heraclius transported five thousand 
men to Trebizond, and thence penetrated into the enemy's coun- 
try, carrying everything before him in his victorious march. In 
a later campaign he stood fatigued, but triumphant, on the very 
plain of ancient Nineveh, having, after a most stubborn resistance, 
routed the vast army of Phazates, and possibly slain that general 
with his own hand. When at length the emperor resumed in his 



240 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

own palace the robes of peace, although the laurels of six glorious 
campaigns encircled his brows, although he could congratulate 
himself that the brilliant sunlight of Assyria had gleamed as 
brightly upon his eagles as upon the locked shields of the Mace- 
donian phalanx, although Avars and Persians alike had disap- 
peared from the shores of the Bosporus, although the eastern 
boundary of the empire had been restored, he did not forget to 
ascribe the success of his arms to the favor of the Lord God of 
Hosts. In acknowledgment of the goodness of Jehovah, the 
pious sovereign visited Jerusalem on a pilgrimage, and restored 
the true cross (as he supposed) to the holy sepulchre. His piety 
also prompted him to seek new victories in the theological field. 
Why should not the same skill, prudence, and courage which had 
driven Chosroes from the suburbs of Constantinople, and then from 
his throne, and bestowed the inestimable blessing of peace upon 
the subjects of the Greek empire, carry him with equal applause 
through the more difficult struggles of theological warfare ? Pre- 
cisely because the approbation of his own conscience, the loyal 
devotion of his subjects, and the smile of Heaven, which attend a 
legitimate monarch who goes nobly forth to do battle against 
overwhelming odds in defense of his realm, must be expected to 
desert him should he undertake to arbitrate with the strong arm 
in the affairs of an independent province. It is said that his com- 
ing in contact with the Nestor ians in Persia caused him to reflect 
seriously upon the policy which had alienated so important and 
numerous a body of Christians from the church and empire. 
What a pity it is that he did not read correctly the lesson of that 
alienation, and learn from it the folly and impiety of the civil 
ruler's presuming to extend his sway into the kingdom of the 
Lord ! As it was, he only resolved to be a little more prudent 
and sagacious than his predecessors. 

It is reported that Heraclius, during his expeditions, actually 
entered into negotiations with Monophysite leaders, in the hope 
of winning them back into the fold upon the basis of the Monoth- 
elite compromise. In 626 he saw fit to consult Cyrus, bishop 
of Phasis, concerning the doctrine of a single operation of the two 
natures ; who, by a favorable answer, so thoroughly established 
himself in the emperor's good graces, that he soon ascended the 
steps of the Alexandrian patriarchal throne. This answer, how- 
ever, had not been given till he had obtained from Sergius of Con- 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF. CONSTANTINOPLE. 241 

stantiuople the assurance that his predecessor in the patriarchate, 
Mennas, had spoken of " one will and one life-giving operation,*' 
and that similar language could be found upon the pages of Cyril 
and other orthodox fathers. In 633 Cyrus congratulated himself 
upon having reconciled the Theodosians by means of a compro- 
mise extended through nine articles. Sophronius, thinking that 
an agreement which enabled the separatists to proclaim that the 
council of Chalcedon had gone over to them, — instead of their hav- 
ing gone over to the council, — was dangerous as well as disgrace- 
ful, strove to avert from the Church the catastrophe he dreaded. 
The earnest and tearful supplications of the learned monk drew 
from the patriarch a proposal to refer the whole matter to Sergius. 
Being a Monothelite, that dignitary was of course disposed to 
favor Cyrus, but still, knowing full well the almost certain conse- 
quences of offending a brother of the monastic confraternities, 
advised him, without changing even the distasteful seventh article, 
to let the whole matter rest where it was, and refrain from employ- 
ing language favoring either one will or two. Sophronius was driven 
into a promise of silence by a demand to produce any explicit 
authority for two operations ; which he was at the time unable to 
do, — though he is said to have afterwards collected six hundred 
passages from the fathers. His promise being considered by him 
no longer binding when he attained the level of patriarchal dignity 
at Jerusalem, his first official communication was a labored and 
able exposition of the Catholic faith in the respect of its maintain- 
ing two operations and two wills in Christ, such being the burden 
of his enthronistic letter. Sergius, in the search for an ally, drew 
Honorius of Rome into the controversy, and succeeded in enlist- 
ing that prelate on his side, and so eventually bringing him under 
anathema for heresy. Notwithstanding that the capture of the 
Holy City by the Arabs soon removed Sophronius from this world, 
a controversy had been born which was not easily to be suppressed. 
In 639 Heraclius entered the arena with a decree which prohibited 
all mention of two operations or of one only, and enjoined all to 
acknowledge one single will, inasmuch as the Saviour's manhood 
never produced any motion contrary to the determination of His 
Godhead. The Ecthesis (as the mandate was called) was worse 
than dubious, clearly advocating the new heresy : its reasoning 
also was faulty, since the harmonious action of two wills by no 
means proves their identity, the one with the other. Sergius is 



242 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

pronounced the real author of the famous document. It obtained 
the sanction of provincial synods at Constantinople and Alex- 
andria, but was opposed at Rome, and particularly by a council 
held under John IY., to whom the emperor then wrote disclaim- 
ing its authorship. 

In 641 ITeraclius exchanged the purple for a shroud. Seven 
months later his grandson, Constans II., began a reign of execrable 
tyranny which, after twenty-seven years, was closed in a bath by 
the treachery of an attendant. About the time of his accession, a 
powerful champion appeared upon the stage in the person of Max- 
imus, whose conscientiousness and religious fervor had drawn him 
away from an important position at court and a good prospect of 
rapid promotion, to a life of seclusion as a monk. He was a man 
of fine abilities and admirable principles, whose productions are 
said by ISTeander to deserve the high praise of containing the ele- 
ments of a complete philosophic system of Christian doctrine. 
Trembling for the cause of orthodoxy, this man resolved to draw 
the sword in its defense. In Africa, he enters the lists of argu- 
ment with the patriarch Pyrrhus, whom the revolution which 
elevated Constans had induced to seek an asylum there, and com- 
pletely vanquishes him. The disputants then repair to Rome, 
where Pyrrhus, who had professed himself convinced by his an- 
tagonist, is not only welcomed to communion, but treated as law- 
ful patriarch of Constantinople. One who had shown himself so 
pliable was not unlikely to bend again, whenever it should suit his 
convenience to do so, as it happened soon afterwards, upon his 
coming under the influence of the exarch of Ravenna. His ter- 
giversation exposed him to the just indignation of Theodore and a 
Roman council, which excommunicated him. And now the tyrant 
himself must step in and issue a decree: he, this incompetent, 
cruel, odious creature, must dictate to the Church of God what she 
shall do under the circumstances ! His Type, or Model of faith, 
by commanding both parties to maintain unbroken silence upon 
the points in dispute, acknowledged, by necessary implication, that 
the scheme of his grandfather had proved a signal failure, and 
testified to his sharing in the strange notion of that renowned an- 
cestor, that the flame of controversy can be quenched by clapping 
an extinguisher upon it. Despots fall into the same mistake when 
they think to make people less restive under their misrule by sup- 
pressing freedom of speech. Do they forget that irritation of feel- 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 243 

ing demands some vent, and will have it ? Do they not know 
that anger will often evaporate in loud proclamations of its direful 
purposes which, otherwise, its compressed energies might impel it 
to accomplish? Besides, who regards such prohibitions? Men 
may converse with bated breath, but they will canvass all the 
more certainly all questions which are interdicted, because of their 
very interdiction. Moreover, when the forbidden topic is one 
regarded as of vital importance, the injunction is peculiarly aggra- 
vating if it seems to insult the understandings of those who are 
zealous partisans by virtually telling them that they are quarrel- 
ing about nothing. So the Type only served to fan the fire, and 
caused it to flame up more fiercely. 

There were not lacking men of independence, courage, and 
self-devotion to oppose the new edict ; foremost among whom was 
Maximus, that dauntless and tireless spirit, who left no means un- 
tried of stirring up the faithful to do their duty in the premises. 
His energetic efforts were so successful, that the Roman pontiff 
was besieged with appeals to arouse himself in defense of the dog- 
matic faith. An unsatisfactory correspondence between Rome and 
Constantinople had resulted in Theodore's anathematizing Paul 
by the authority of a council, and in Paul's overturning the altar 
of the papal chapel at Constantinople, and otherwise insulting his 
brother patriarch. The Type went forth in 648. The next year 
Theodore gave place, by death, to Martin I., who immediately 
convoked the first Lateran council, so called from being held close 
by the Lateran palace, in the " basilica (or churcli) of Constan- 
tine." It was no inconsiderable gathering, for the archbishop of 
Ravenna and other bishops attended to the number of one hun- 
dred and five. The spirit of Sophronius found utterance from the 
lips of Stephen of Dor, who, obedient to the solemn charge of his 
former superior, stood there to urge the condemnation of Monoth- 
elism. The Manes of that dead hero must have been appeased by 
the bold denunciations leveled in twenty canons against that 
heresy and all who favored it. Clear testimony was borne to the 
doctrine of two united wills and two operations, and against the 
oft and easily perverted expression of " one theandric operation." 
Theodore of Paran, one of the ablest advocates of the heresy, our 
old friend Cyrus of Alexandria, and three patriarchs of Xew 
Rome, — Sergius, Pyrrhus, and Paul, — were included in one gen- 
eral sentence of doom, which also reached to such inanimate 



244 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

objects as the " most impious Ecthesis " of Sergius and Heraclius, 
and the "most impious Type" of Paul and Constans. Martin 
took no pains to smooth down the asperities of such decided 
action, but proceeded to communicate its decrees by letter, not 
only to the various bishops and patriarchs who had not been pres- 
ent at the sessions of the council, but to the sovereign himself. 
It is surprising that the rage which must have inflamed the royal 
bosom permitted Martin the long respite of more than three years, 
especially when we remember that, while the synod was yet sit- 
ting, an imperial mandate had already sent the exarch Olympius to 
Rome, with instructions to enforce the Type and dispatch the 
Pope to Constantinople. For unexplained reasons, Olympius for- 
bore to execute his orders, so that it was not till Theodore Callio- 
pas had succeeded him that the venerable prelate was seized. 

After sorrowing over the gradual decline of learning and piety 
as exhibited in the history of the three preceding general councils, 
we feel the pleasurable sensation of reviving hope as we dwell 
upon the narrative of the Sixth and last, and discover here and 
there a character not wholly unworthy of ranking with the fathers 
and confessors of an earlier period. We cannot, perhaps, urge 
much in behalf of the proficiency of the disputants in theological 
knowledge, though Maximus seems to have been a divine of whom 
no age need be ashamed ; but we are, above measure, rejoiced at 
finding more than one champion whom danger, difficulty, and 
death could not teach to yield, and who, instead of contenting 
himself with repelling assaults made upon his own person, sallied 
bravely forth in order to break a lance for any who needed his 
assistance. The North Africans of the last century had done 
yeoman service for the great cause, but they mainly labored to 
defend their own entrenchments. However, far be it from us to 
disparage such men as Reparatus and Facundus. All honor to 
the noble band that had run the gauntlet of Vandal- Arian perse- 
cution. Look now at Sophronius. We have seen him ride forth 
alone upon a perilous enterprise, thoughtless of self. It remains 
for us to accompany the patriarch as he leads his chief suffragan 
to the awful spot which witnessed the crucifixion of the One about 
the nature of whose operations the conflict raged, and in view per- 
haps of the baleful crescent which already waved over Zion, most 
solemnly charges him to seek the Latin patriarch, who had so 
often stood in the breach against heresy, and never cease to im- 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 245 

portune him till that error had been condemned against which he 
had himself been contending so manfully since the day he threw 
himself at the feet of Cyrus. That suffragan was Stephen of Dor, 
who thenceforth seems to have devoted himself to the task laid 
upon him, and to have constituted himself the champion of an 
Idea. And why not ? What grander spectacle does earth afford 
than that of a man who sacrifices himself joyously upon the altar 
of an Idea ? All honor to him who, despising ease, safety, riches, 
and pleasure, turning resolutely aside from the glittering prizes 
held before his eyes by ambition, and denying himself even the 
sweet solaces of home and family affection, enlists beneath the 
banner of some true and mighty Idea, and goes down cheerfully 
to death only grieving that Providence has not spared him long 
enough to behold the sure triumph for which he longed. Such a 
hero was Maximus, who ever and anon looms up upon our vision in 
radiant majesty as, Agamemnon-like, he speeds hither and thither 
inciting the chiefs to bold and vigorous effort against the foe. 
Surrendering everything, he gives himself up to the work, resolved 
that heresy shall not overthrow the standard of the Cross, if his 
best endeavors can avert such a catastrophe. Where dislike of 
Monothelism prevails he fans it into a holy abhorrence, and w T here 
it has not yet been lit he strives to collect dry tinder for the spark. 
Careless of coldness and neglect, superior to hatred and defiance, 
he goes calmly on in his pilgrimage, glowing with holy zeal, pa- 
tient of delay, and prepared for any fate. But the chief martyr 
was he whom the patriarchal throne exposed to peculiar odium. 
When the new exarch arrived in Rome he found the pope lying 
on a sick-bed in the Lateran church. There, surrounded by his 
clergy and shielded by the sanctity of the altar, he heard his sen- 
tence of deposition from his bishopric and deportation to Con- 
stantinople from the lips of Calliopas, who, after taking all the 
precautions of extreme cowardice to guard against the danger of a 
popular uprising, had at last ventured to lead an armed band 
within the hallowed walls. A word from Martin would have 
brought to his side the frantic rage of the populace, and doomed 
the imperial emissary to instant and terrible destruction; but that 
gentle-spirited prelate rebuked the inconsiderate zeal of his ad- 
visers, declaring that he would ten times rather see his own blood 
shed than that of a single follower flowing in his behalf. At mid- 
night the poor old man was hurried away, without the company 



24:6 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

of the friends who had eagerly accepted the general permission to 
attend him, and carried to the port; the gates of Rome being there- 
after kept shut till the vessel had sailed, on board of which he had 
been conveyed. Throughout the protracted voyage he was treated 
with unnecessary rigor, being closely confined to the ship while 
others were refreshing themselves on shore, and during a whole 
year's stay at Naxos denied all the comforts that humanity would 
have conceded even to a hardened culprit in the forlorn condition 
of this sick old man, no friends being allowed to break in upon 
the tedium of his captivity with kindly words and loving sympa- 
thy, and all presents of such articles of food as would have tended 
to restore his wasted strength being rejected with insults to the 
givers. All discomforts of body and humiliations of soul were 
borne with meek resignation and heroic fortitude. His letters 
written at this juncture breathe the spirit of Christian patience 
and trust. He survived these miseries, only to encounter greater 
when once he had reached the imperial city. What shall we think 
of a ruler who could leave such a sufferer lying on deck through 
the hours of a long day exposed to the jeers of the class that fre- 
quents the wharfs of a great emporium, and then compel him to 
drag out weary months in a dungeon before obtaining a hearing? 
After a trial which was a mere mockery of justice and an exhibi- 
tion of detestable cruelty, he was consigned to another prison. To 
the other miseries of his lot was added that of being paraded in 
public as a condemned criminal. The old man's dignity did not 
desert him in any of these trying scenes. Whether ridiculed by a 
ribald populace or abused by the officers of the law, he never 
ceased to remember that he stood in a higher presence than that 
of man. While the hounds of Constans bayed around his venera- 
ble form and dared to claim for themselves the name of Christians, 
though so feeble that his tottering knees scarcely upheld his weight 
even with the support of attendants, his indomitable spirit rose in 
the sublimity of innocence, and cited his judges to meet him before 
the Eternal Bar. At length he was dismissed into exile, the in- 
tended sentence of death having been commuted, probably at the 
prayer of Paul, the patriarch of Constantinople, whose animosity 
was not proof against the solemn reflections of his death-bed. 
Bidding farewell to his few attendants with a cheerfulness that 
contrasted strangely with their tears, he was transported across 
the Black Sea and set ashore in the Crimea. There he passed the 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 247 

short remainder of his days among barbarians, under all kinds of 
privation, waiting patiently to be freed from the burden of mor- 
tality. His stomach loathed the coarse and unaccustomed fare of 
the natives, but was granted only the choice between that and 
starvation. Neglected by his friends, who shrank from offending 
the tyrant by extending a hand to the wretched outcast, he very 
naturally grieved at this desertion, and gave vent to his feelings 
in a letter to one of them, expressing surprise that even his own 
clergy had forgotten his existence. Abandoned thus to his loneli- 
ness and misery, uttering no note of repining louder than we have 
already listened to, the patient, cheerful, heroic veteran soon fell 
asleep, and thus received a most welcome release from the fetters 
of a hopeless captivity. "Not to be sated, the sleuth-hounds opened 
in full cry upon one whose declining years had only added strength 
to a name which had long been the very bulwark of orthodoxy. 
They flew upon Maxim us and his disciple Anastasius, who for 
more than thirty years had hardly been separated from each other, 
dragged them down, flung them into separate dungeons, and then 
sat howling for their blood. More consideration by far was, for 
some reason, shown this leader and model of the monastic order, 
every influence being brought to bear in order to extort such con- 
cessions that he could be spared. Did his enemies really rever- 
ence his character, or was their forbearance the result merely of a 
shrewd calculation that to gain Maximus would be to remove the 
last prop of the Dyothelites ? They coaxed, they flattered, they 
plead, they promised profusely, they threatened terrible things. 
Then they urged upon him a formula of compromise, brief and 
vague, which was not incapable of orthodox interpretation. Did 
they expect to deceive Maximus, and cajole him into even appear- 
ing to countenance false doctrine ? At last the authority of the 
new pope, Eugenius, whose agents had signed the temporizing 
formula, was cast upon him, under the hope that his independ- 
ence would be buried beneath the incumbent mass. From below 
came the distinct, though half-smothered, voice : Though the 
bishop of Rome or an angel from heaven preach any other gos- 
pel, let him be anathema. "What ! exclaimed his opponents, Are 
you alone to be saved ? and are all others to perish ? — They had, 
in this question, taught theological disputants to hurl a missile 
that was destined to be a favorite one against every independent 
thinker or staunch believer. — His reply is worthy of being com- 



248 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

mitted to memory by all who have felt, or are likely to feel, the 
sting of the query : " God forbid that I should condemn any one, 
or should claim salvation for myself only ! But I would rather 
die than have on my conscience the misery of erring in any way 
as to the faith." He and his companions were sent to reflect upon 
their previous course and future prospects at Bizya in Thrace. 
The expedient of exile also failing to shake their indomitable 
courage, the wrath which had long impended, at length, intensi- 
fied by long restraint, burst upon them. Maximus was subjected 
to the ignominy of a public scourging at Constantinople, was 
mutilated by the cutting out of his tongue and the loss of his 
right hand, and then banished to the country of the Lazians, 
where he soon died, in 662. Like indignities and sufferings were 
inflicted upon his comrades. 

"What hope was left for the Church ? "Who now should bear 
up the banner of the truth ? Anastasius taught his left hand to 
hold the pen, and his tongueless mouth to articulate speech, but 
the fourth year saw this redoubtable knight give up the contest, 
which he had carried on with efficiency from his place of exile till 
death called him to peace. When he dropped the baton, who 
should take it up ? It was long before that daring mortal showed 
himself to the world. The fate of Martin had intimidated his suc- 
cessors, so that Eugenius and Yitalian, the two next popes, did 
not summon resolution enough to oppose Constantinople. The 
heavens hung black above the Church. The Monothelites raised 
the shout of victory, and none sent back a counter-cry. Had, then, 
Sophronius in vain committed that solemn trust to Stephen of Dor \ 
Had Maximus and Martin lived, and struggled, and suffered, and 
died, to so little purpose \ Believe it not, ye that in this genera- 
tion wear the mantles of those men of God. Never yet did man 
fight valiantly for the truth, or suffer steadfastly for it, and lose 
his efforts ; not though he stood the last on the field of strife, hav- 
ing seen his routed comrades scattered to the four winds, and him- 
self, disdaining to fly, won at the sword's point in hopeless battle 
the death he coveted. The memory of his heroism lives on, and 
becomes a priceless legacy to those that follow. Aye ! And the 
terror of his name lives on, and strikes dismay on after fields to 
those who knew the strength of his arm, and even to those whose 
infant ears drank in the tale of his matchless prowess. The 
trumpet of Maximus shouted the alarm long after the tyrant had 



THE TRIED COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 249 

wrenched it from his grasp, and the pious firmness of the mar- 
tyred pope survived in bosoms that had once loved the bishop 
they had lacked manliness enough to succor in his hour of sore 
need. Sad was the fate of the two champions, and bitter the cup 
that imperial cruelty forced them to drain; but what heart is 
there so poor as not to envy them the glory of such a record as they 
have left, the immense advantage of having undergone such a 
course of discipline, and the boundless satisfaction they must now 
feel in looking back and seeing what noble service they were per- 
mitted to perform for their Lord ? Being dead, they still lived, 
and their memories cheered the brethren on to the fight. 

The battle was renewed by Pope Adeodatus, who took the 
decided step of separating the patriarch of Constantinople from 
his communion. In retaliation, Theodore, bishop of that city, 
and Macarius of Antioch, proposed to strike off of their church 
records, or diptychs, the name of Yitalian, the last pope who had 
been admitted upon their lists. But this expunging could not 
be attempted without the emperor's consent, and there then sat 
upon the throne a man of different character from the last despot, 
his son Constantine, who manifested a sincere desire for the res- 
toration of peace. Though not especially remarkable for any 
unusual qualities of soul, Constantine Pogonatus (the Bearded) 
seems to have been a rather better ruler than the average em- 
perors of that age, and to have inclined generally towards the 
side of clemency and moderation. If he did stain his hands with 
some acts of cruelty, the fewness of these deeds, and the reluc- 
tance with which he approached the supposed necessity of mutilat- 
ing his brothers, are, at least, refreshing to the mind that has been 
dwelling upon the abominable transactions of the last reign. In 
order to heal the schism, he wrote, in 678, a letter to Donus of 
Pome, requesting him to send delegates to Constantinople, to the 
end that a conference might be held with a view to the adjusting 
of differences. Agatho, who had become patriarch on the death 
of Donus, immediately upon receipt of the missive called a coun- 
cil, at which one hundred and twenty-five bishops were present, 
and among them Mansuetus of Milan, who was Primate of the 
Lombard kingdom, two Frankish bishops, and also Wilfrid of 
York ; these four being worthy of mention as not having been 
subjects of the empire. But one result could be expected from 
such a council. The Latin Church, invincibly hostile to change, 



250 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

sought not for truth amid the wranglings of metaphysical discus- 
sions, so much as from the calm testimony of tradition, and a col- 
lation of passages from approved writers of earlier times ; and also 
possessed far more independence of spirit than the servile Orien- 
tals. Monothelism received its certain sentence. Agatho dis- 
patched, thereupon, two bishops and a deacon to represent him at 
the Bosporus, and put in their hands a letter which was to serve 
the same purpose, and perhaps win equal distinction, with Leo's 
celebrated Tome. The council also sent a delegation. 

Deeming it best to vary somewhat from his original intention, 
Constantine resolved to substitute for the proposed conference an 
oecumenical synod, or something approaching in its nature to such 
a synod. The Sixth General Council, which was the Third held at 
Constantinople, and was also called the Trullan from the domed 
roof of the room in the palace which witnessed its sessions, met on 
the 7th of November, 680, and continued to sit till the 16th of 
December, in the year 681. Opening with rather a small attendance 
of bishops, it was able, before its close, to count up nearly two hun- 
dred. It was not dignified by the presence of the usual number of 
patriarchs, those of Jerusalem and Alexandria being represented by 
two presbyters ; George of Constantinople and Macarius of Antioch 
being therefore the only ones who personally participated in its de- 
liberations. All disputes for the presidency were obviated by the 
emperor's assuming that honor himself. His felicitous rulings 
perhaps assisted greatly in giving this council the higher tone 
which distinguished it above some, at least, of the preceding ones. 
The long continuance of the synod seems to have been necessi- 
tated by the thoroughness of its investigations. The extant pro- 
ductions of orthodox and unorthodox were ransacked and carefully 
studied; the first, in order both to ascertain as precisely as possible 
the mind of the earlier church and to support the view finally 
determined upon with an array of authorities as conclusive and 
copious as might be ; and the second, for the double purpose of 
settling what exactly the Monothelite doctrine was, and of identi- 
fying it, either in whole or in part, with older heresies. Among the 
former class, none were more influential than those of the grand 
old hero of the Mcene period, if we may form an opinion from 
the insertion of the name of " the most wise Athanasius" and the 
commendatory' quotation of his words in the decree of the council. 
All respect was paid to the communications from the "West, the 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 251 

decisions of the Roman assembly being treated as those of a tribu- 
nal of coordinate jurisdiction, which were not to be rejected nor 
disregarded unless they could be conclusively demonstrated to be 
erroneous or ill-advised : this was surely a great concession. 

There occurred at the fifteenth session a very curious incident, 
which, besides exposing some of the weak points of human nature, 
may also be useful to us as indicating the probable results of hav- 
ing recourse to the expedient of a " prayer-gauge," according to the 
suggestion of a modern professor. It must have been an interest- 
ing spectacle which was afforded in the court of the public bath, 
when the dignified ecclesiastics assembled around a silver bier, on 
which lay a corpse with a Monothelite creed on its breast, and 
stood for an hour or two, expectant, while an aged monk whis- 
pered in its ear. And, naturally enough, the adherence of the 
defeated Polychromius to his error, notwithstanding that he had 
himself proposed the test, was no less persistent than the dead 
man's slumber. Not put out of countenance even by a failure wit- 
nessed by the prelates, the highest officers of the state, and a vast 
concourse of people, and so palpable that he himself was obliged 
to acknowledge the discomfiture, he held his faith unshaken 
through a storm of popular clamor anathematizing the new Simon. 
Yet the man had had the assurance to ask the council to promise 
a change of its belief in the event of his raising the lifeless body ! 
It may have been something better than superstition that induced 
the synod to engage in this experiment, for the recoil of the rash 
attempt upon the one who should make it would be sure to carry 
popular favor over to the side of the Dyothelites. 

The decision that was reached after so many months of labori- 
ous study and sustained argumentation approved the theory of two 
natural operations and two natural wills, the chief qualification of 
this view being that the two wills never came into collision, the 
human will always acting when the humanity was called into 
activity, but never moving out of harmony with the divine. This 
proposition, however, is not to be understood as laying down that 
there never were in the breast of our Saviour any incipient mo- 
tions towards rebellion, for such tendencies or involuntary de- 
sires are not acts of the will in any sense. Whether these were 
present in Christ is a question which the council did not attempt 
to solve, wisely refraining from a discussion which is impossible 
of solution, and can only be very imperfectly illuminated by the 



252 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

light of those passages of the New Testament which teach that He 
was susceptible of temptation. How a soul can be tempted which 
is unconscious of the faintest disposition to transgress, is not ap- 
parent to the ordinary intellect; but, passing by that obscure 
topic, the congregated fathers confined themselves to the declara- 
tion that the positive volitions of that perfect human mind, the 
decided acts by which it controlled His human organism, were 
always in entire accord with the movements of the divine will. 
By way of illustration, they are not to be understood as telling 
us that Christ experienced no momentary longing to obey the 
tempter, and convert the stones into a substance capable of ap- 
peasing His gnawing pangs, but merely that He admitted such a 
craving to continue not one instant after His will could be brought 
to bear upon it ; nor that He felt no shrinking from draining His 
appointed cup, no desire to escape from the awful fate of cruci- 
fixion, but only that He held such emotions under control, and 
never allowed His will to ally itself with them. Still, on the other 
side, the divine will never overpowered the human, nor used it as 
a mere instrument ; but the latter energized independently, and, 
so energizing, harmonized with the former. Such a definition of 
faith could not, of course, be reached by searching authorities 
which came into existence before this dispute was begun, but it 
had to be attained by careful process of reasoning based upon au- 
thorities as a groundwork. That logic had to construct the edifice, 
is no proof that the writings of the fathers and the decisions of 
councils were useless ; nor can any one suppose them useless who 
does not expect a superstructure to support itself in air, entirely 
clear of the ground. 

It is worthy of especial remark that a successor of St. Peter, 
an heir (as we are told) to the infallibility of that Prince of 
Apostles, was included by name in the anathema of the Sixth 
General Council. As having followed the opinions of the Mo- 
nothelites, and sanctioned their impious doctrines, a distinct con- 
demnation was, after an extended examination of his letters, pro- 
nounced upon Pope Honorius. This sentence Leo II., who had 
succeeded Agatho before the return of his legates, not only fully 
ratified, but sought to have approved by his brethren throughout 
the West. 

Thus it appears that Sophronius, Maximus, and Martin had 
not struggled uselessly. Instead of Monothelism gaining the day, 



THE THIRD COUNCIL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. 253 

it now seemed to be hastening towards extinction. Macarius of 
Antioch, it is true, had persisted in adhering to heretical opinions, 
and been cast out with his disciple, Stephen ; but the Saracen con- 
quests had robbed him of the importance which might have made 
his see the stronghold of a new sect. Gradually the decrees of the 
last General Council worked their way into universal approval, 
but not without encountering some obstacles. The pendulum 
oscillated several times before it reached a perpendicular. A fresh 
dispute, which broke out between the two great patriarchs during 
the reign of Justinian II., retarded the complete pacification of the 
Church. It was caused by the action of the supplementary council 
to the fifth and sixth, — known by the extraordinary title of Quini- 
sext, — in passing some canons obnoxious to the Latin patriarch 
and, perhaps, enacted almost for the express purpose of humbling 
his see after the triumph it had won under Agatho. Sergius abso- 
lutely refused to affix his name in the place which had been left 
for it on the paper containing the one hundred and two canons, 
immediately after the imperial signature and before those of the 
four Eastern patriarchs. "When the protospathary, Zacharias, was 
bidden to seize the pope and send him to Constantinople, an upris- 
ing of the populace reduced that officer to the necessity of seeking 
protection from the proscribed prelate; and a general revolt drove 
Justinian, about the same date, into exile. After ten years spent 
in wandering from tribe to tribe and plotting to regain his iost 
throne, the mutilated sovereign returned to fulfill the threat he 
had uttered in an awful hour when his trembling companions be- 
sought him to save the ship and propitiate Heaven by forgiving 
his enemies. Then the tyrant summoned Constantine before him. 
"Well might the Roman patriarch have hesitated to obey. A 
neighboring prelate, Felix of Ravenna, had been crushed by the 
fangs of the royal tiger. To have incurred the displeasure of the 
embittered monarch was to have embraced the rack. Constan- 
tine went, looked the savage beast fearlessly in the eye, and re- 
turned, not only unscathed, but rewarded with a confirmation of 
all the privileges of his see. Xext ensued a temporary triumph 
for the heretical faction while the throne was occupied by a fanat- 
ical Honothelite, who refused to enter his palace until the picture 
of the Sixth Council had been torn down. In conformity with a 
promise he had once made to a hermit who predicted his elevation, 
this ruler did everything within his power to abrogate that council. 



254 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

It is at once instructive and distressing to find that a command of 
Bardanes to subscribe a Monothelite creed was generally obeyed 
throughout the East ; instructive, as indicating that the compro- 
mise party was still possessed of some strength ; and distressing, as 
betokening a lamentable lack of fidelity on the part of those who 
were honestly orthodox in their beliefs. Home, however, boldly 
refused to submit, and rose in an outbreak which, but for the in- 
terposition of Constantine, would have ripened into a revolt. In 
less than two years Bardanes Philippicus was hurled from his seat : 
he pulled down Monothelism with him. John, a most facile 
prelate, having been forced into the patriarchal throne by Philip- 
picus, and, eager now to secure the favor of a catholic sovereign, 
Anastasius II., declares that he has always been a true believer at 
heart, and most submissively entreats to be received into fellow- 
ship by the pope. Thus died the heresy of a single will and one 
operation in our blessed Saviour. 

There remained only a small remnant which, entrenched in the 
fastnesses of Libanus and Anti-Libanus, and revering the abbot 
Maron as its spiritual father, maintained its independence through 
the lapse of ages and the crash of governments till the time of the 
Crusades. In the twelfth century the submission of the Maronites 
to the Latin patriarch of Constantinople extinguished the last 
ember of Monothelism. 



CHAPTER XIY. 

THE ICONOCLASTIC COXTEOVEESY. 

We have now studied the great controversies which gave rise 
to the six general councils, and seen the doctrinal system of the 
Church slowly assuming symmetrical form, as it developed through 
the strenuous efforts it was obliged to put forth in struggling 
against different forms of heresy. "We have, it is to be hoped, 
satisfied ourselves that these synods were truly oecumenical, com- 
manding the assent of all Christians to the dogmas propounded 
by them ; and also charged our memories with the substance of 
their decrees. Thus far the great Catholic Church has, for the 
most part, maintained its corporate unity, but soon it will snap 
asunder at a median line marked out by imperialism and betrayed 
to view by the schisms that have already attracted our attention 
between the two Homes. As a potent agency in bringing about 
that lamentable disruption, the long-continued and violent dispute 
concerning the lawfulness and obligation of worshiping images 
must now pass in review before us. 

Christianity was originally given to a race strongly prejudiced 
against pictures and images of all kinds. In order to protect the 
Jews from their inveterate tendency towards the worship of false 
gods, it had been necessary to prohibit all representations of things 
in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth. Yet, 
that the spirit of Judaism was not hostile to art, is evident from 
the descriptions which have been preserved of the different places 
of worship from the portable tabernacle to Herod's gorgeous 
structure, and from the fact that, when in ancient times a power- 
ful monarch proposed to himself to accomplish a marvel of archi- 
tecture, his highest aim was to surpass the temple at Jerusalem. 
!N"or can the law against images be literally construed in view of 
the elaborate carvings which kept before the eye in the pomegran- 
ate and the lily emblems of fruitful ness and purity, of the twelve 



256 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

massive oxen which supported the molten sea of Solomon's temple, 
and of the cherubim whose wings overshadowed the mercy-seat, 
all of these ornaments having been carved and fashioned accord- 
ing to directions given by Jehovah Himself. At the dawn of 
Christianity Pharisaic overstrictness had attached such glosses to 
the written word that even the most innocent production of artistic 
skill, however far removed from danger of attracting to itself im- 
proper reverence, would not have been tolerated for a moment. 
The Jews who were early converted to the Gospel retained their 
ancient repugnance to images of every description, and the prose- 
lytes from other religions doubtless felt a strong revulsion against 
all that savored of the idolatrous practices which they had re- 
nounced. The early Church was not inclined to look kindly 
upon idolatry, or upon anything that would tend in that direc- 
tion. Having clearly before her eyes in corrupt Corinth, in ef- 
feminate and luxurious Ephesus, in profligate Rome, and every- 
where in Asia, Syria, Egypt, or Italy, plain proofs of the debasing 
and debauching influences of heathen rites and polytheistic doc- 
trines, and embarked in a tremendous struggle with the innumer- 
able forms of vice which grew beneath their shade, she was not 
likely to permit her children to eat the food that had been offered 
to idols, to bow down before those idols, or even to possess repre- 
sentations of any sort that might lead them back into their former 
paths. Many of the early Christians were decidedly over-rigid in 
this matter. The narrow-mindedness of man clings to him even 
after he has been regenerated, so that some of the greatest and 
most illustrious of the fathers arrayed themselves against science, 
and denounced as inventions of the devil theories which are now 
accepted by all enlightened men, whether believers or unbelievers. 
What would St. Augustine say, should he now revisit earth and 
enter a dissecting-room in one of our medical colleges ? Would 
he still denounce, with all the vehemence of his rhetoric, such 
desecration of the divine image? If he did, his anathemas would 
provoke a smile among the most reverential. It is a sad truth, 
the confession of which is being gradually extorted from those 
who name themselves by the Ever-blessed Name, that the leading 
minds of the Church have often been bitterly opposed to the 
progress of thought. There is a certain tendency in elevated 
piety to look down with pity, if not with contempt, upon what 
appears to it the trivial affairs of this world. Engrossed with the 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 257 

contemplation of eternal verities, man scorns the fleeting things 
of time, sees no importance in the classification of a flower or the 
computation of the mean distances of the planets ; cares naught 
for an instrument which affords the spectrum of light that ema- 
nates from a point no more than forty trillions of miles away, and 
fails to discover any interest in researches that are revealing the 
history of our globe for incalculable ages before Adam was created ; 
would prefer that a man should commit all the crimes in the cat- 
alogue rather than maintain that the earth is round, that he 
should mutilate all his brothers and near kinsmen rather than 
impiously interfere with divine Providence by inoculating for the 
small-pox, and that he should burn a library rather than invent 
the printing-press. A similar hostility was displayed against art. 
Language can be discovered in the ancient Fathers strongly con- 
demnatory of all such trifling as the work of sculptor or painter 
seemed to their transcendental imaginations. It was by no means 
the austere Tertullian alone who denounced all adornment or or- 
namentation as unchristian. But fairness requires that we should 
ascribe this blind opposition against both science and art, not to 
religion, least of all to the Christian religion, but to that unfor- 
tunate tendency of human nature in its fallen condition which 
drives it always towards the poles. The corporate Church never 
committed itself to such a folly, and Christianity was far too 
grand and broad a faith to fear any kind of truth, or think that its 
spread could be otherwise than favorable to its own. Christianity 
hostile to Love of the Beautiful ! How can that be when it dis- 
closes to our adoring love the compassionate scheme of redemp- 
tion, when it paints for us the w r onderful character of Jesus of 
Nazareth, when it teaches us how to fill our own lives with the 
same purity, and righteousness, and loveliness of self-sacrifice 
which made His the one perfect life that the world will ever have 
known ! Beauty does not belong to the kingdom of darkness and 
evil : it is a part of the very nature of light and goodness. What 
is ugly but filth, and foulness, and deceit, and selfishness, and 
pride? What is beautiful but purity, and cleanliness, and truth, 
and unselfishness, and humility that imitates the mind of Him 
who left His own radiant throne in order to take upon Him the 
form of a servant ? Must religion be held to be antagonistic to 
love of the beautiful because it teaches that beauty of the soul is 
superior to that which consists in regularity of outline and skillful 



258 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

blending of colors ? Yet this must be the substance of any rational 
argument against it on that score. How unjust is such an accusa- 
tion against the religion of Him whose blessed words clothed the 
lily of the field with additional glory, and in the light of whose 
Gospel the grass that so soon withers away and is burned mellows 
into a softer verdancy ! Let Manichseism spread its gloomy pall 
over the fair face of nature, and Montanism mar its beauteous 
shapes with the ruthless hammer of a repulsive theory, but for the 
disciple of Christ let all the earth glow with the hope of a coming 
redemption ! 

The divinely-implanted sentiment that feeds upon the beauti- 
ful forced its way gradually through the obstructions thrown in its 
path by the circumstances of the primitive Church, and dared at 
last to claim the right of seeking its appropriate nourishment in 
the external and sensuous, as well as in the internal and supersen- 
suous, world. This change was inevitable when once the Church 
had brought to her feet Grecian learning and Grecian genius. 
Could the countrymen of Phidias and Praxiteles forget the tradi- 
tions and instincts of twenty generations? The same impulse 
which had filled the cities of the empire with statues of gods and 
goddesses, marble embodiments of ideal physical manhood and 
womanhood, still lived. It may have drawn some sustenance 
from such relics of ancient art as had lingered behind when 
heathenism was banished from the basilicas. However that might 
be, it lived, and was destined to enjoy a period of greater vigor. 
What power could have withheld the true artist, in whose bosom 
glowed at once the two fires of genius and devotion, from exert- 
ing his talents upon sacred subjects? Was it not inevitable that 
the first painter of marked ability and genuine piety should give 
the world a picture of the Baptism, the Last Supper, the Cruci- 
fixion, Resurrection, Ascension, of any or all of these? What 
brush or chisel held by fingers that had handled the Bread of Life 
could be restrained even by reverence from the impossible attempt 
of delineating the sacred countenance of Christ ? Shall the false 
and shallow prejudices of the age smother down the aspiring 
flame ? Not so, for there is that in true genius which bursts all 
trammels, recognizes the truth in the midst of all counterfeits, 
and dares the worst in behalf of what it feels to be noble, and 
high, and good. The reverential, loving heart yearns to dedicate 
its best to the service of its Lord. Has it a remarkable gift, the 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 259 

ability to do auglit better than its fellows, the power of awaken- 
ing others to higher thoughts, and loftier aspirations, and mightier 
achievements ? It will wish to promote thereby the glory of Him 
from whom it comes. Can such a wish be wrong? Can it be 
wrong to make proper use of any capability the Almighty has 
bestowed upon us ? Let the narrowness of bigotry deny to such 
a spirit the right to follow out the bent of its yearnings, it will, 
conscious of their derivation from above, indulge them notwith- 
standing the prohibitory edicts ; or else it will turn aside with a 
groan into other paths, and live a life from which the glory has 
been stolen. If the Manichsean notion were true that different 
deities formed the external and the internal, then might a theory 
be believed which sets the one in antagonism to the other ; but as 
long as man is convinced that the same hand framed the seen and 
the unseen, the temporal and the abiding, the material and the 
spiritual, so long will his inmost soul rebel against every theory 
which forbids it to recognize and admire, not only the good, but 
the true and the beautiful, wherever found. And if it be right 
to admire the handiwork of the Creator in mountain, and valley, 
and stream, in tree, and shrub, and floweret, in the cheerful sun- 
shine, the snow-white cloud-peak, and the brilliant mantle of the 
evening ; if it be right to let the fond eye linger upon the guile- 
less face of innocent childhood, upon the gentle countenance of true 
womanhood whose purity, and love, and trust envelop it in a radi- 
ance before which even its exquisite perfection of outward beauty 
is forgotten, or upon the robust form and clear-cut features of 
thorough manhood that delights in toil and danger, that can 
exchange blow for blow with the strongest and fiercest and yet 
tame its strength to the tenderaess of a mother towards her sick 
babe ; can it be wrong to imitate these on canvas or in marble ? 
Is it wrong to reproduce them in the word-pictures which the 
glowing imagination of the Oriental orators knew so well how to 
paint ? But perhaps it is only objectionable to set these represen- 
tations before the eye of the worshiper in the public sanctuary or 
private shrine, whither he resorts to pay his devotions. Extraor- 
dinary idea ! Why should all that appeals to the love of the beau- 
tiful through the eye be banished from our temples ? Is the ear 
so much more sacred than all the other senses that it alone de- 
serves to be the handmaid of devotion and religious instruction ? 
If those who throng our vast churches are, many of them, too igno- 



260 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

rant to read or too dull to comprehend what they read, if they can 
take into their comprehensions and memories at a single glance 
by means of a pictorial representation scenes, histories, and facts, 
which otherwise could hardly have been so well impressed upon 
them by a year's laborious instruction, why should they not be 
taught by the one method which seems efficacious 1 If the heart 
can be assisted in its efforts to rise heavenwards by a massive 
column or ornate capital, by statue of saint and martyr, or by 
elaborate design well wrought out in brilliant coloring upon 
window-glass, wall, or ceiling, why should it be denied such 
helps ? See the inconsistency of the preacher who will summon 
all the resources of the rhetorical art, and appeal to the imagina- 
tion with a fervid eloquence which makes it see what he holds 
before it as plainly as though that were actually depicted to the 
sight, — and will do all this perhaps in a diatribe against embellish- 
ment of God's house ! 

To an educated person there is almost no danger in the utmost 
profusion of pictures and images. Taught to observe mental proc- 
esses, and distinguish between the ideal and the real, he is not 
likely to confound the portrait or the statue with the man of 
whom it is the representation. With the undisciplined mind it is 
far different. Just as the savage believes in some mysterious con- 
nection between the absent friend and the likeness he holds in his 
hand, and cannot be persuaded that the latter is not part and par- 
cel of the former, so the unlettered multitude is ready to attach 
mysterious virtue to the image of a saint, and then to regard it as 
in some way inhabited by the departed spirit. Nor is the highest 
talent altogether exempt from the same pernicious tendency. 
Gazing with intense and lingering love upon the beautiful face of 
nature, many a man has come to fancy that he held communion 
with the spirit of the personified material object of his affection ; 
very much as the ancient sage created a nymph to sanction the 
code of laws over which he had pondered deeply by the bubbling 
fountain. In the same way, it may not be impossible for the 
ardent temperament of one who is imbued with the artistic spirit 
to endow the inanimate stone, or the product of white lead and 
various pigments, with a fictitious spiritual existence. As long, 
however, as pictures cover walls and windows merely, and images 
remain in niches removed from possibility of near approach, their 
free use is not calculated to prove very harmful. The peril is not 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 261 

in allowing tliese representations, but in permitting the perform- 
ance of adoration before them. The moment a man begins to 
repeat his prayers before any image or picture, although he may 
argue that he never had a thought of addressing them to the 
material substance, and that he uses the representation only to 
assist his devotion, he is in danger. If the Second Commandment 
binds the Christian conscience, then is such an act forbidden as 
idolatrous. The common plea that the worship is paid, not to the 
idol, but to the deity of which it is a symbol, or of which it serves 
as a reminder, would excuse all idolatry, since few of the most 
degraded ever sink so low as to lose all sense of the distinction 
between the idol and the god. The Almighty will not allow Him- 
self to be confounded, even in the smallest degree, w r ith wood, and 
stone, and paint, the work of men's hands and the offspring of 
their petty minds. 

Idolatry is, not only an insult to the deity, but an offense 
against human nature, tending very perceptibly towards the deg- 
radation of the race or the individual that indulges in the practice. 
It enervates, by suffering that exalted faculty of the human mind 
through which it rises to the contemplation of God to lie compara- 
tively idle. Substituting the bodily eye for that of the soul, it per- 
mits the latter to content itself w r ith less exertion than is needed to 
preserve its healthiness and perfect its powers, and thus weakens 
it as eyes are always weakened by the use of unnecessary helps, or 
as the restoration to soundness of an injured leg is impeded by 
unduly prolonging the use of crutches. A healthy mind, whether 
of greater or less strength, has no need of any such medium be- 
tween it and its God as these representations afford, but is per- 
fectly competent, whenever it will undertake the task, to raise 
itself to such a height that it can adequately realize the presence 
of God for praying effectually. The effort of doing so is fre- 
quently a great one, but is attended with the most beneficial 
results to the whole mental organism, and is really necessary in 
order to accomplish the end proposed. The employment of any 
material object, instead of being a help, is merely a hindrance, 
causing the mind to stop short of the goal with the belief that it 
has attained it. 

"When the spirit of man becomes conscious of growing weak- 
ness, it will seek for stimulants which a more vigorous constitution 
would disdain. The general decay of learning which accompanied 



262 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

the decline of the empire affected those whose occupation it was 
to study the mysteries of religion, as well as the scholars of secular 
knowledge. The decrease of intellectual attainments almost neces- 
sarily involves a diminution of mental power, upon the principle 
that what is treated as useless tends to become so. As the mind 
ceased to exert its noblest powers in the higher spheres of thought, 
its tone became insensibly lowered, till presently it shrank from 
the fatigue of a purely spiritual devotion, and permitted itself to 
lean more and more upon sensuous helps. Images and pictures 
would then be multiplied in many churches and introduced into 
many an oratory, they would be brought down nearer to the wor- 
shiper, so as to be kissed and adorned by the more enthusiastic, and 
would attract towards themselves more and more the feeble- winged 
supplications of the effeminate multitude, grown too weak for the 
labor of mounting in thought to the Eternal Throne. 

It was inevitable that a reaction would presently take place. 
Some one would raise the cry of alarm, some bold-spirited monk 
would issue from the deserts and call mankind in trumpet tones 
back to the faith from which it had fallen, some high-minded 
shepherd would fearlessly and unsparingly exert himself to eradi- 
cate the harmful practice from his flock, or, under the existing 
condition of affairs, some pious sovereign would undertake to 
remind the Church that it was swerving from its allegiance. This 
movement would, most likely, originate among some hardy and in- 
dependent race, whose inferior civilization had avoided the fatal 
rot which was destroying the high, but unchristian, civilization of 
the Byzantine people : it would perhaps spring from some vigor- 
ous tribe of half- wild aborigines, which had preserved among inac- 
cessible cliffs and narrow valleys that valor and fidelity which 
seem to be imbibed with the bracing atmosphere and extended 
views of mountainous regions, and for which any kind or degree 
of refinement whatsoever is but a miserable substitute. Nurtured 
among rocks and crags, the spirit of Protestantism would only 
await the signal of destiny to rush down, like one of its own 
mountain torrents, upon the enervated and luxurious inhabitants 
of the lowlands. Perhaps, too, the impulse which should set the 
pent-up stream free would come from outside of the boundaries of 
Christendom, from this or that false religion to which a justly 
offended God would give a commission to chastise His own sub- 
jects on account of their rebellion. 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 263 

From the sand wastes of the Arabian peninsula burst a tem- 
pest "which, in the seventh and eighth centuries, swept like a 
sirocco over the adjacent countries of the Asiatic continent, and 
continued its mad career till it was met, in the heart of France, 
by the still fiercer blasts of the North. In the terrified ear of the 
Greek rang that tremendous battle-cry, " There is no God but 
one, and Mahomet is his prophet." Resistless and disdainful, on 
surged the Saracen hosts, and down went the Greeks before them. 
With all the emphasis of victory they raised the derisive shout 
against the idols of the Christians, as they called the various im- 
ages which they found adorning the churches. Then the Jews 
took up the cry, and nourished their old antipathy to the fol- 
lowers of the despised Nazarene by heaping ridicule upon them 
as idolaters. May it not have been that Judaism and Mohamme- 
danism thus combined to arouse many a Christian from a lethargy 
that might have else been fatal ? Stung almost into fury by the 
slanderous epithets lavished upon their brethren, many felt the 
blush of shame presently supplant the fiush of indignation, as the 
truth slowly dawned upon them that much had been committed 
to warrant the reproach. Even if the almost universal defense 
was a denial of the charge, a bold affirmation that the reverence 
paid to images was not idolatrous, nevertheless the conscience of 
the Church was, even at that, put upon its guard against possible 
abuses. 

The Isaurian mountains nurtured a race of hardy peasants who 
did not easily fall a prey to the Saracens after these had overrun 
Syria. Attracted by such superior facilities as Thrace afforded 
for the speedy acquisition of wealth, one of these peasants emi- 
grated thitherward, engaged in the profitable business of a grazier, 
and on one occasion supplied the imperial camp with five hundred 
sheep. His son enlisted in the guards of Justinian II., and, draw- 
ing to himself the favorable regard of his superiors, by his services 
in the Colchian war especially, rose gradually from the ranks till 
Anastasius rewarded him with the command of the Anatolian 
legions. In the year 718 this peasant's son was crowned with the 
imperial diadem, by the acclaim of the troops, and with the glad 
approval of the people. Still carrying a soldier's heart, Leo III. 
drove an army of the Saracens from before the walls of Constanti- 
nople, and a Saracen fleet from its harbor, with the assistance of 
Greek fire ; and then pushed those invaders beyond his borders ; 



264: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

and also distinguished himself in various other successful enter- 
prises of a martial nature. Unfortunately, he saw no limits to his 
authority, but thought himself called upon to rule as absolutely 
over the minds as over the bodies of his subjects. His remarkable 
energy and determination made him a terrible persecutor when 
once he had decided to suppress a sect or put down an evil. In 
the sixth year of his reign a most ill-advised and cruel edict com- 
pelled Jews and Montanists to receive Catholic baptism, with the 
result that the former submitted to a hollow rite, and the latter 
perished self-devoted in the flames with which their own fanati- 
cism wrapped their meeting-houses. Although his hatred of 
Image- worship was not one whit less violent, he wisely dissem- 
bled it until ten prosperous years had seated him firmly upon his 
throne. His first attack was planned with all the prudence of a 
wily general, who dreads the numbers more than the skill of his 
foe. Instead of disclosing his full purpose at once, as an ordinary 
despot would have done, he condescended to employ strategy. 
He did not aim, he said, at pictures and images themselves, nor 
even at every species of veneration of them, but only at such 
adoration as was implied in bowing, kneeling, and prostrating 
one's self before them : indeed, he professed to entertain such re- 
spect for those holy objects that his intention in directing them to 
be raised above the reach of the people was to protect them from 
profaning touch of hand or lip. What share the bishop of Na- 
colia, a Phrygian city, had in this action of the emperor we can 
only conjecture. It may have been that Constantine was animated 
by a sincere concern for the honor of Almighty God, burned with 
vehement indignation at beholding the Church wholly given over, 
as he may have thought, to idolatrous practices, and hoped to 
promote the interests of true religion by persuading Leo to emu- 
late the pious zeal of Hezekiah in removing the brazen serpent 
from the adulterous eyes of backsliding Israel. Both monarch 
and counselor were probably taken by surprise when the edict 
was answered in tones of general execration and defiance, and an 
ill-equipped fleet from the Archipelago proclaimed the indigna- 
tion of the islanders beneath the walls of the imperial city by sup- 
porting the pretensions of a certain Cosmas, who had been put 
forward by the monkish faction. But Greek fire having again 
proved an efficient protector of his oft-beleaguered capital, Leo 
listened to the voice of resentment, and issued a more stringent 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 265 

edict commanding the demolition of all images and the oblitera- 
tion of all pictures : those were to be broken to pieces with 
hammers, these rubbed over with a wet brush. 

Such prelates as were themselves opposed to images, or anx- 
ious to recommend themselves to imperial favor, proceeded to 
enforce the edict in their dioceses, and were reinforced by the 
secular arm, which ruthlessly punished the refractory by the vari- 
ous methods known to the cruelty of that time. But the opposi- 
tion was not to be thus easily extinguished. If men had clung 
tenaciously to an abstruse doctrine concerning the profoundest 
mysteries, would they easily surrender that upon which their rev- 
erential, loving gaze had so often been fastened, that which their 
very hands had handled ? Besides, there were deeper interests than 
even these involved in this headlong assault upon all kinds of 
representations ; for was not Jesus Christ the Image of the invisi- 
ble God, and therefore was not the very doctrine of the incarna- 
tion assailed ? It may be that the emperor was performing a most 
courageous and necessary deed, but he certainly was attempting, 
almost single-handed, to breast a tremendous tide and turn it back 
upon itself. 

In Germanus, the venerable patriarch of his own city, Leo 
met with a heavy disappointment, for, holding to that view of the 
connection between Images and the Incarnation at which we have 
hinted above, he preferred, although ninety-five years of age, to 
resign his see rather than subscribe the edict. The example of 
Constantinople was followed by Rome, which was gradually with- 
drawing from the decrepid empire of the East, and affiliating it- 
self with the rapidly advancing and consolidating power of the 
Franks. Gregory II. rejected the edict, with the emphatic 
approval of all Italy, which seemed ready, if such a step should 
become necessary in order to save itself from Byzantine despotism, 
to throw itself at the feet of Luitprand, the Lombard king. Ra- 
venna drove its exarch to Pavia. The whole country was on the 
verge of revolt. Had Leo attempted to execute his threat of seiz- 
ing the pontiif, as Martin, of pious memory, had been seized, he 
would probably have discovered that the pope had not exceeded 
the bounds of veracity when he wrote that a withdrawal from 
Rome the distance of twenty-four furlongs, into Campania, would 
condemn those who should pursue him to the profitless task of 
chasing the winds. His successor, Gregory III., presided over a 



26Q THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

synod of ninety-eight bishops, and united with it in anathematiz- 
ing all those who opposed Images. This, and other provocations, 
incensed Leo to such a degree that he sent a fleet to chastise Italy, 
which, however, escaped at the expense of other countries, the 
vessels being so badly disabled by storms that they never reached 
their ultimate destination. 

But the most famous champion of images resided within the 
dominions of the caliph, whose privy counselor he is said to have 
been, as his father had been before him. John Damaseenus has 
attained the distinction of having been almost the last theologian 
of the Eastern Church, and of being, to a great extent, the acknowl- 
edged exponent of Eastern theology. At the outbreak of this new 
controversial struggle he wielded the pen in behalf of Images with 
such effect that, exasperated at the plainness of speech and the 
force of argument which he presumed to employ, Leo forged a 
treasonable letter in his handwriting and sent it to the Mussul- 
man. John was evidently a thorough believer in Images. The 
daily taunts which he must have been compelled to hear at court 
only served to confirm him in his attachment to his idols, if such 
we choose to term them. He was unable to perceive what hurt 
such representations of sacred persons, things, or scenes could do 
to such as had reached the full stature of Christian manhood. 
Injurious they must have been in the childhood of religion, but 
they surely could not harm those who lived in the full light of the 
new revelation. If we can credit tradition, John soon had an 
opportunity to perform a miracle in attestation of the correctness 
of his views, for the indignant caliph, disregarding all his protest- 
ations of innocence, condemned him to lose the most guilty mem- 
ber. He was fully equal to the occasion. Stooping to a little 
duplicity, he begged, when evening came, that the hand might be 
given him, as he experienced great suffering while it was exposed 
to the open air. His request having been granted, the Damascene 
presented his petition before the image of the Yirgin Mary, and 
then lay down to rest in the implicit belief that his supplication 
would be heard in Heaven. When he awoke the next morning 
the severed wrist was whole again, — unless some mistake has 
crept into the legend. Eejecting the offer of his former master to 
reinstate him in his service, the grateful John dedicated his recov- 
ered hand to the cause of images in the monastery of St. Sabbas, 
near Jerusalem. In three orations which he composed against 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 267 

Iconoclasm, he makes much of a distinction, which later ages have 
enlarged upon, between the kind of adoration we pay to the Deity 
and that worship which we may properly address to creatures, or 
even to things ; a distinction which deserves all the odium that an 
outraged Christianity can throw upon it. 

In 741 Constantine Y., surnamed Copronymus, began a reign 
of such a length that he was enabled, in pursuance of his father's 
schemes, almost to extirpate Image-worship from the churches. 
As the repressive measures which he pursued with so much vigor 
called out many of the most violent passions of men into active 
play, it was inevitable that very opposite views of his life and 
character should be presented to posterity by the writers of the 
period. To the Worshiper of Images he would be a very monster 
of iniquity, loaded with all the most atrocious and abominable 
crimes and vices ; while to the Iconoclast he was sure to be a pat- 
tern of virtue, remarkable for chastity and temperance. The 
acknowledgment can hardly be withheld that he was endowed 
with unusual abilities and that he possessed, as might have been 
expected of his excellent stock, the disposition and the skill to put 
these to the best account, both in conducting campaigns against 
Bulgarian and Saracenic enemies, and in increasing the resources 
of his dominions. It seems more than probable that these valu- 
able qualities of head were joined with gross licentiousness and 
extreme cruelty, those sad manifestations of a corrupt heart. A 
rash rebellion, in which the Image- worshipers were more or less 
implicated, heated into seven-fold fury the furnace to which im- 
perial tyranny doomed them. His brother-in-law, Artavasdus, 
sought to clothe himself with the purple, and, as a means thereto, 
courted popular favor by restoring images wherever he obtained 
power to do so ; but was put down after a struggle of three years' 
duration. Having conquered his rival, Constantine nevertheless 
thought that prudence required him to place severe restraint upon 
himself, and postpone the full gratification of his revenge and 
hatred until he could throw them the reins without imperiling his 
throne. Proceeding with caution, he fortified himself with the 
sanction of a council which he convened in the year 754: in the 
outskirts of Constantinople. This obsequious body was presided 
over by the bishops of Ephesus and Perga, not a single patriarch 
being included in its list of three hundred and thirty-eight bishops. 
Its decisions might have been drawn up by the emperor himself, 



268 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

so full and explicit were they in condemning images and pictures, 
which they commanded to be removed from all places of worship, 
and in anathematizing all who should persist in setting up any 
such representations, or in adoring them, or even in retaining 
them in their possession. It is painful to notice, that even this 
Iconoclastic Council openly declared its approval of the practice of 
invoking the Virgin and the saints. How lamentable must have 
been the degeneracy of the Church when both parties could agree 
in sanctioning so pernicious and irreverent a custom ! Yerily, it 
was time that God should arouse Himself, and save the Church 
from utter apostacy by the lash of bitter adversity. 

Constantine went beyond the council, not only ordering that 
all images should be removed, but that pictures on church walls 
should be painted over, and thus changed into representations of 
all sorts of secular scenes. If his design was to goad the people 
into madness, he could scarcely have devised a better plan, for 
with what impatience must the devout- minded have seen sacred 
edifices desecrated with designs taken from the theatre or the cir- 
cus! If Theodosius of Ephesus and a few others heartily ap- 
proved of the measures taken for suppressing Images, it is to be 
feared that a large proportion of both the clergy and laity was even 
more unalterably hostile, not only to the actual measures, but to 
all others towards that end. It has always been a characteristic 
of the monastic life to produce moral courage and religious zeal. 
Any cause, therefore, which enlists the sympathies of those who 
have dedicated themselves to prayer and pious meditation, is sure 
to find abundant martyrs. A fiery monk could at any time be 
selected who would joyfully embrace a call to penetrate into the 
palace and upbraid the sternest and crudest despot to his very 
face. Peter " the calybite " allowed his fanaticism to carry him 
before Constantine, and incite him to call that vindictive man by 
names that must have irritated a much less passionate one : he 
atoned for his rashness beneath the lash, being scourged in the 
hippodrome and afterwards strangled. JSTo thing could subdue the 
constancy of such men as Stephen of Bithynia. Monks flocked in 
such large numbers to his grotto, which was on a lofty mountain 
near the sea-shore, to receive counsel and encouragement from this 
ardent Image-worshiper, that policy dictated an attempt to win 
him over by means of an embassage undertaken by a person of high 
rank. This conciliatory policy having failed, recourse was had to 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 269 

the customary measures of imprisonment, banishment, and torture, 
but with equal lack of success. So little impression was made 
upon his dauntless mind, that he actually dared to trample upon 
the emperor's likeness before his very eyes. Taking a coin and 
drawing attention to the image on it, he threw it to the ground 
and put his foot upon it. The illustration was extremely forcible, 
but neither courteous nor safe. The emperor's indignation was, 
as might have been anticipated, too strong for his love of con- 
sistency, and prevented him from learning the lesson of, at least, 
proceeding against Images in such a way as not to insult the One 
for whose honor he professed to be concerned. Stephen expiated 
his offense upon the stones of the streets, being dragged about by 
one foot till the breath had left his aged body, which was then torn 
in pieces. Such unflinching firmness convinced Copronymus that 
the only sure method of overcoming the resistance of the monks 
would be to break up their communities and abolish their orders. 
With that end in view he destroyed monasteries or profaned them 
by consigning them to secular uses, and compelled their inmates 
to break their most solemn vows by eating luxuriously and by 
standing in the hippodrome hand-in-hand with lewd women. 
The refractory were subjected to the usual penalties. The bar- 
barous name of a Thracian governor, Michael Lachanadraco, is 
especially infamous in this connection. Not satisfied with put- 
ting out the eyes of those who refused to commit perjury by 
wearing white and taking wives, nor with banishing them to 
Cyprus, he adopted the devilish device of anointing their heads 
with a combustible mixture and then igniting it, slew many, and 
burned and plundered the monasteries generally. His rage 
against relics emptied the celebrated Chalcedonian Church of 
those of St. Euphemia, which were cast into the sea and carried 
by the waves, it is said, giving forth a delightful odor all the way, 
to Lemnos, and there preserved for the faithful of a happier gener- 
ation. 

Every outrage was heaped upon one of these unhappy men, 
whom the emperor's own partiality had created patriarch of Con- 
stantinople. Why the arrow of persecution was aimed at him is 
hidden in obscurity. Recommended in the first place by his zeal 
against Images, and readily compliant with later commands of his 
master, who required his presence at banquets and indecent scenes 
which he could not attend without breach of his monastic vows, 



270 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Constantine nevertheless fell at length under the imperial dis- 
pleasure, and was banished, only to be brought back again before 
the second year had expired and subjected to every indignity and 
cruelty. Beaten, struck, spitted upon, compelled to ride back- 
wards upon an ass, holding its tail with both hands, his hair, eye- 
brows, and beard having been plucked out, thrown violently to 
the ground, trampled upon, and at length beheaded, the poor suf- 
ferer doubtless had ample opportunity to sigh over the sinful com- 
plaisance, which had shorn him of his dignity in the eyes of others, 
and deprived him of the satisfaction he might have felt in endur- 
ing persecution had not his own weakness deserved it. 

Images continued under the ban during the short reign of the 
third emperor of this line, Leo IV., who, however, pursued a 
much more lenient course towards the worshipers of them than 
his father had done. Being endowed with little strength of con- 
stitution or force of character, he fell much under the sway of his 
wife, but not so utterly as to permit her to indulge her fondness 
for Images. The violent repressive measures of three sovereigns 
were not without some effect in uprooting Image-worship. Two 
important classes at least were rendered thoroughly Iconoclastic. 
The episcopal thrones, being very largely under imperial control, 
were, of course, filled, as they became vacant, with such ecclesias- 
tics as were of one mind with the court upon the great subject of 
controversy. However, the bishops were, in all probability, more 
unanimously Iconoclastic when Leo IV. ascended the throne than 
they were after his wife had secretly been using her influence dur- 
ing four years and a half in procuring the promotion of monks to 
such seats as were to be filled. The second class was one of enor- 
mous power in all absolute governments. The military achieve- 
ments of Constantine Copronymus had attached the soldiery so 
firmly to his memory, that nothing but superior prowess in any of 
his successors could have induced them to look kindly upon a 
cause that he had assailed so vehemently. On the opposite side 
were, first of all, the much-enduring, but unconquerable, bands of 
monks, men who almost seemed to enjoy the persecutions which 
they courted. Then, behind these pioneers stood the vast masses 
of the populace, rank upon rank, always disposed to attach great 
sanctity to the monastic habit, and of late deeply impressed and 
entirely won over by the constancy and courage that had so con- 
spicuously marked these separatists from society. It was evident 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 271 

that the battle was not yet decided, and that the Image-worshipers 
only awaited a leader in order to display their forces upon a well- 
contested field. As the impulse which had overturned the idols 
had come from a hardy, independent, plebeian stock, impatient of 
all that savored of effeminacy, so it was likely that the reaction 
would spring from an ancestry that had lost in many generations 
of high culture that freedom of thought and nobility of nature 
which can seldom survive long contact with luxury. In marrying 
his son to a woman who, besides being a Greek, was of a family 
noted for its attachment to Image-worship, Copronymus made the 
strange mistake of supposing that a solemn oath could bind her 
conscience to inaction in so holy a cause. Educated under the 
effete civilization of later Greece, and immoral to such a degree 
as to crave instinctively some kind of religion which concealed sin 
under the veil of external and sentimental observances, Irene was 
just the woman to become the heroine of the monkish party and 
restore Images to the niches from which they had been so igno- 
miniously expelled. 

After the death of her husband Irene grasped the reins of gov- 
ernment in the name of her son, Constantine VI., a boy about ten 
years old, and began at once to disclose an intention of reinstat- 
ing both monks and images. At first she contented herself with 
what to her was a half-way measure, an edict of general toleration. 
Her especial care for several years was to prepare the way for a 
total revolution by accustoming the people to the sight of the 
banished monks, by favoring the monastic life, and by promoting 
as many ascetics as she could without creating too much disturb- 
ance. A fortunate incident aided her schemes when they were 
becoming ripe. In 784 a severe sickness induced Paul to abdi- 
cate the patriarchate of Constantinople, and take refuge in a mon- 
astery ; in which he soon afterwards expired, but not until he had 
expressed deep contrition for all that he had done in opposition to 
the sacred cause of Images, declared that it had been done out of 
regard for man and at the price of an uneasy conscience, indicated 
a desire to perform penance as the motive of his retirement, and 
advised the empress to appoint as his successor some worthy man 
who should reconcile his see to the rest of the Church by reestab- 
lishing the blessed custom of worshiping Images. So opportune 
was this occurrence that it has very much the look of a gotten-up 
affair ; and yet, as has been suggested, it would be natural enough 



272 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

for a man to act as Paul did, provided he had originally been an 
Image- worshiper in sentiment, and, in joining the iconoclasts, had 
done violence to his convictions from a desire to conciliate the 
emperor. Pains were not spared to circulate this story, and Tara- 
sius, the first secretary of state, having been recommended by the 
dying patriarch, was irregularly advanced to the episcopal throne. 
As an off-set to the council which had condemned images under 
Copronymus, one was now summoned by Irene. But with all her 
caution, she had outrun prudence, for when, in August of the year 
786, a number of bishops had assembled in the Byzantine church 
of the Apostles, a mob broke in upon them and compelled them 
to disperse. Perceiving that a large number of the prelates were 
violent Iconoclasts, and that they could rely upon the support of 
the soldiery, the empress wisely bent to the gale, and directed her 
adherents to withdraw. The interval of a year having sufficed to 
dispatch the unruly guard away from the city, break it up, and 
form a new one, and to complete other necessary preparations, the 
fathers met again the ensuing September. JSTice was preferred to 
Constantinople for the place of assembling, as being freer from dis- 
turbing elements and redolent with the sacred memories of the 
year 325. The three hundred and fifty members of this synod 
were presided over by the Roman envoys, Tarasius, and two 
monks who claimed to represent the three remaining patriarchs. 
The history of the proceedings is nauseous to all who have not 
lost the power of feeling moral disgust, as it is impossible to sup- 
pose that the lapse of the Iconoclastic bishops was a genuine con- 
version, and we must regard it as a most sickening exhibition of 
Oriental fickleness and spiritual cowardice. It is pitiful to hear 
man after man sounding the note of abject submission, to listen 
to Gregory of Neo-Caesarea while he begs to know what is the 
general opinion of the conclave before venturing to form one of 
his own, or to notice the wretched spirit with which they seek to 
excuse themselves for their former conduct. What sort of men 
to lead the armies of the Lord are these ? one involuntarily ex- 
claims, as he searches in vain for a single dignitary who dared to 
stand by his convictions, or indeed who seems to have really had 
any convictions. Better even could we return to the days of 
Cyril and Dioscorus, than that we should linger among these gal- 
vanized corpses, these hollow shells, of men ! Worse than the 
contentions of John and Cyril, worse than the tumultuous cries 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 273 

which drowned the voice of Theodoret, worse than the Latro- 
cinium itself with its brutal assaults upon Flavian, worse by far 
than any exhibition of zeal however uncontroled or of fanaticism 
however wild, was the awful stupor of death which flung the 
Second Council of Xice upon the pavement before an Image, and 
reminds us sadly of that terrible scene in the Hell of the poet, when 
the congregated potentates suddenly find themselves prone upon the 
earth, hissing with forked tongue and impotent rage. The council 
decreed that jto Images (representations made by the painter's, and 
not the sculptor's, art) should be set up and honored with a certain 
kind of worship less profound than that paid to the Deity. This 
decree, having been signed by the members of the council and by 
the empress and her son, fastened the two distinctions upon the 
Eastern Church for more than a thousand years, and, it may be, 
for a much longer period yet to come. The Second Council of 
Nice was intended to be oecumenical, and is considered by the 
East to have merited that appellation ; but we will discover enough 
in the sequel of its history to convince us that no universal con- 
firmation of its decisions ever occurred to entitle it to such honor. 
Throughout the extent of the Greek empire its authority was in- 
deed acknowledged during the rest of Irene's reign and several 
subsequent ones, but even there it did not pass altogether un- 
questioned. 

In the year 813 another Leo came to the rescue of a pure and 
manly faith. The days of the Isaurian were almost restored under 
the Armenian, who was not unlike, in most respects, to that fa- 
mous namesake whom he seems to have chosen as his pattern. Bred 
in the camp, Leo V. retained under the purple the virtues of a 
warrior, and the cruelty and arbitrariness which often disgrace his 
profession. Most strange to relate, the impetus in this instance 
came from a monk, who promised the ruler a long and prosperous 
reign if he would exert himself to eradicate idols and idolatry from 
the Church. Determined to assure himself of his road before ad- 
vancing, he consulted with ^sicephorus, patriarch of the city, the 
celebrated monk and fanatical image-worshiper, Theodore Studites, 
and others who were of that side, and with Antony of Sylseum 
and other Iconoclasts. His first public step was to require the 
adherents of the Images to promise that they would abstain from 
holding meetings and from discussing the topics under dispute. 
Vehement in a bad cause, Theodore threw all the fanaticism of a 



274 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

monk into the opposite scale, with the result that he exasperated 
the emperor both against himself and his party, so that orders 
were issued to destroy or remove Images wherever it could be 
done, and many recalcitrant prelates and abbots were deprived 
and banished, and he himself sent into exile. During the seven 
years that saw him driven from place to place, starved, impris- 
oned, dreadfully scourged, and otherwise maltreated to the extreme 
of human endurance, Theodore evinced a heroism which causes a 
sigh that it was manifested, not only in behalf of a more than 
doubtful practice, but needlessly, since he could have avoided his 
sufferings by using mildness and moderation, instead of untem- 
pered boldness, in his speech. He particularly offended the 
emperor by his reply when summoned to attend a synod which 
was held by the successor of Mcephorus with a view to over- 
turning the council of Irene and reestablishing that of Coprony- 
mus. Stung by the opposition he encountered, and not least by 
Paschal's refusal to receive the imperial commissioners into Rome, 
by his undertaking to intercede for the advocates of pictures, and 
by his general attitude towards the iconoclasts, Leo's Armenian 
blood grew warmer by degrees, till his rage broke forth in terrible 
and vindictive measures, that threatened to overwhelm the pictures 
and their friends in one indiscriminate ruin. 

The next emperor, Michael II., or " the Stammerer," leaped, 
in 820, on Christmas day, from a dungeon to the throne, over the 
dead body of the Armenian, and with such rapidity that he wore 
his fetters several hours after his elevation. He began by toler- 
ating images, and might have continued in that course had not the 
frantic Theodore persisted in irritating him, till he was driven into 
forbidding them and punishing their worshipers. An Iconoclast 
ruled the Byzantine Church, during this reign, in the person of 
Antony of Sylseum. It appears, from a letter which Michael sent 
to the Frank emperor, Lewis the Pious, that the extravagances of 
the Image- worshipers had exceeded all bounds. Images had been 
employed as sponsors for children : now they were offered lights, 
and incense, and the shorn locks of devotees, and were used as media 
for conveying the consecrated bread to communicants ; while pict- 
ures were made to serve as altars, and even the excess was reached 
of scraping off the paint from them and mixing it with the wine 
in the chalice. 

Having been educated by John the Grammarian, whom he 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 275 

soon raised to the patriarchate, Theophilus was something of a 
scholar, very much of a pedant, and not at all favorable to pict- 
ures. He strove to abolish the practice of adoring these by raging 
against artists and monks in general, and on one occasion con- 
demned two brothers, Theophanes, the poet, and Theodore, to re- 
ceive two hundred lashes, and have twelve iambic verses of his 
own composition branded on their foreheads, because they would 
not yield to him the palm of controversy. His indignation fell 
upon another monk, named Lazarus, who, however, persevered in 
using his brush, notwithstanding admonitions and cruel beatings, 
till he had achieved a picture which obtained a reputation for 
possessing miraculous powers. Having slain his brother-in-law, 
Theophobus, lest he should disturb the succession, and bound 
his wife and the senate by an oath to preserve the course of 
ecclesiastical policy which he himself had adopted, he expired 
in 842. 

A second Irene was now to appear upon the stage. Like that 
empress-mother, sprung of an image- worshiping family, and, like 
her, bound by a solemn engagement not to impose the practice 
upon her dominions or even to indulge in it herself, Theodora imi- 
tated the conduct of her predecessor in disregarding her promise, and 
in laboring with patience and astuteness to establish the adoration 
of pictures upon an immovable basis. One of the guardians of her 
minor son was a decided advocate of Images, but Manuel, his 
uncle, was restrained by prudential considerations from declaring 
his sentiments very explicitly till after a dangerous sickness, from 
which several monks had promised him a complete recovery upon 
condition of his pledging himself to labor for the restoration of 
pictures. Theodora herself had a difficulty to overcome in her 
reluctance to cast any aspersions upon the memory of her hus- 
band. Her scruples being finally removed, the necessary meas- 
ures were resolved upon to reinstate Images in their full glory. 
The patriarch John having been ejected with violence, and Me- 
thodius, a confessor in the cause of pictures, thrust in his place, 
and a synod having pronounced in favor of what some insisted 
upon calling idolatry, the dethroned Images of the capital were 
replaced with great pomp on the First Sunday in Lent, a day 
which has ever since been observed in the Oriental Church under 
the name of the Feast of Orthodoxy ; and Images had again and 
finally triumphed through the instrumentality of a woman. 



276 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Rome had all along been the most unflinching patron of 
Images, but her example had had little weight outside of Italy. 
In the West a new power was rising, which would soon wrest the 
Eternal City from the Byzantine sceptre. The Merovingian dy- 
nasty had been gradually obscured by the mayors of the palace, 
till at last Childeric was immured in a monastery and his officer, 
Pepin the Little, grandson of Pepin of Heristal, and son of Charles 
Martel, formally seated upon the throne. After acquiring from the 
sacred hands of Pope Stephen such additional title as he could 
convey, and reigning with renown for sixteen years, Pepin di- 
vided the rapidly consolidating empire of the Franks between his 
two sons, of whom the one, Charlemagne, soon heard himself 
declared sole and undisputed ruler. The great abilities of this 
man and the long continuance of his rule enabled him vastly to 
enlarge the boundaries of his dominions, by subduing the Saxon 
tribes and hurling Desiderius from the Lombard throne, and to 
improve the mode of administering the government, increase the 
internal resources, and promote the interests of learning and re- 
ligion. Possessed of great natural shrewdness, of an excellent 
understanding, and of marvelous energy, Charlemagne distin- 
guished himself almost as much in letters as in arms and political 
affairs. Although of gigantic stature and herculean strength, his 
moral qualities corresponded with the physical. Submitting to 
receive the crown of the Roman empire from Leo III., he was, 
nevertheless, not the man to be restrained by deference to any 
one from investigating independently any subject that demanded 
careful examination, or from adhering firmly to the opinion he 
should be led to form, and freely advocating what he had con- 
cluded to be the correct view. Therefore, when the controversy 
about Images came up before him, he felt no awe of emperor or 
pontiff, borrowed his arguments neither from Constantinople nor 
Rome, but called his ecclesiastics, at the head of whom was Al- 
cuin, around him, and with their help gave to the world a full 
and clear statement of his belief with regard to the topic under 
dispute in "The Four Caroline Books." Having to contend 
against hereditary and gross idolatry in those barbarians whom 
he baptized by thousands at the edge of the battle-axe, he was 
not likely to look with great favor upon any practice that seemed 
to ape their degrading superstition. Besides which he was doubt- 
less incensed against Irene, on account of the slight she put upon 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 277 

Mm by refusing to fulfill a contract of marriage between her son 
Constantine and bis daughter Kothrud. 

Both parties had run to extremes, after the usual fashion of 
disputants. On the one hand, the advocates of Image-worship had 
gone such lengths that, although in theory they preserved various 
nice distinctions which protected them from tbe guilt of inten- 
tionally transgressing the Second Commandment, in practice they 
certainly infringed upon the forbidden territory. Indeed, we may 
make a bold advance and say that their whole teaching was tinct- 
nred through and through with idolatry, that the entire drift of 
the current was carrying them in that direction, and that their 
position was utterly untenable except by employment of defenses 
subversive of Christianity. The same plea which they were so 
fond of advancing would justify every prostration ever made, 
unless we can suppose men so besotted in their crass ignorance 
as to confound a horrid, grimacing, shapeless lump of stone with 
the immaterial deity their souls crave to know and address. On 
the other hand, the Iconoclasts had permitted themselves to in- 
dulge in some very ridiculous assaults upon art. If a less fatal 
error than the other, this was by no means without injurious re- 
sults. It is no slight mistake to dry up any fountain of happiness 
that the Creator has caused to bubble forth in the human bosom, 
to rob mankind of any innocent pleasure, or throw down any 
ladder by which he can climb nearer to heaven. It is a terrible 
crime to force into the ranks of her enemies any who could be 
faithful and useful servants of the Church, as those were attempt- 
ing to do who put forth such zealous efforts to drive art, and all 
who loved it, from within the sacred precincts. Idolatry may be 
worse than barrenness, coarseness, and ugliness, but these last are 
bad enough if they repel from her communion those who, know- 
ing that the love of the beautiful is a gift of God, shrink from a 
creed which surrenders it to the devil and dooms to starvation 
those minds that are cast in the artistic mould. 

It is greatly to the credit of the "Western emperor that lie had 
the wisdom to steer a middle course, avoiding the rocks and shoals 
which lay on either side of the deep, but narrow, channel ; neither 
offering insults to Infinite Power by bowing in adoration before a 
mere representation as though it were divine, nor striving to root 
out any divinely-implanted instincts from the human breast. In 
his elaborate work, Charlemagne does not hesitate to criticise 



278 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

freely both the Image- worshipers and their adversaries, administer- 
ing, however, the severest rebuke to that party which, by intro- 
ducing objectionable and dangerous practices into the Church, had 
made itself responsible for the whole disturbance. Nothing in it 
is more noteworthy, perhaps, than his treatment of the argument 
which had been drawn from the custom of prostration before 
images of the emperor. He reasons that nothing is gained by 
founding one bad practice upon another, and especially when that 
other is a mere remnant of the ancient pagan idolatry. How re- 
freshing is such language after breathing the stifling air of the 
Byzantine court ! Pope Adrian I.'s weak reply failed even to 
shake the shield of his mighty adversary, who sat not less firmly 
upon the steed of theological controversy than he did upon the 
strong and spirited charger which was accustomed to bear his 
vast bulk through dismayed multitudes on the banks of the Weser 
and the Elbe. The views which had been so powerfully advo- 
cated by their sovereign were thoroughly approved by the Estates 
of the realm when they assembled, in 794, at Frankfort-on-the- 
Main, to consult about affairs both civil and ecclesiastical. What- 
ever had been the decision of the former council, held under 
Pepin, at Gentilly, no doubt envelops the attitude of this noted 
assembly towards Image-worship. The worst charge that can be 
laid at its feet is that of having unjustly accused the second coun- 
cil of Nice with having assigned the same kind of worship to 
pictures that is due to the ever-blessed Trinity ; whereas it had 
distinctly asserted the contrary, — although the imperfect reports of 
its acts which had reached Frankfort might not have been explicit 
upon this point. 

Similar views w T ere advanced by a council which met in Paris 
in 825, having been convoked by Lewis the Pious on occasion of 
the embassy sent to him by Michael the Stammerer, begging that 
he would use his influence to obtain the Pope's sanction of the 
proceedings against Image- worship. This synod rejected Adrian's 
letter, with some tenderness for that prelate's reputation, and ap- 
proved of the retention of Images and their employment as helps 
to the memory, understanding, and imagination, but reprobated 
the use of them as stimulants to devotion by repeating one's 
prayers before them. The emperor and the council both attempted 
to reconcile Pope Eugenius and Michael, but did not meet with 
much success. Still, the flattering regard they showed for the 



THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY. 279 

papal chair won upon its occupant so far as to remove any dis- 
position he may have had to adopt harsh measures against his 
Frankish allies. As for the two emperors, they seem to have 
been in entire sympathy with each other, Michael not being at all 
a violent Iconoclast. Certain prelates, especially Agobard, arch- 
bishop of Lyons, and Claudius, bishop of Turin, wrote in favor of 
a total abolition of pictures, or even strove to banish them from 
the churches under their jurisdiction by forcible ejectment ; but 
the general sentiment of the empire was on the side of moderation. 

France by no means stood alone in her refusal to accept the 
Romish doctrine of Image- worship. Britain, in particular, showed 
no hesitation in following her example, and may have even united 
formally with Charlemagne and the council of Frankfort in their 
decisions. Indeed the entire West, with the exception of Italy, 
set its face like a flint against the fatal decrees of the second 
Nicene synod. 

Unfortunately, this bright scene soon becomes overcast, as the 
dense vapor of papal corruption spreads upon the fair face of 
Europe ; but through it all shines down to our day bright rays 
from the beacon-light which Frankfort erected upon such a well- 
chosen site. 



CHAPTER XV. 

THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AOT) WEST. 

Although the Creator had designed that all men should, as 
far as possible, live amicably together, the wicked folly of the 
tower-builders made it necessary for Him to confound their lan- 
guage and disperse them over the face of the earth. Unity is a 
most desirable condition, but one for which it is not wise to sacri- 
fice everything else, especially since all that can be bought is the 
mere shadow, the substance being of too precious a nature ever to 
be exposed in the market. Of what value is outward harmony 
when deep beneath the surface i rankle envy, jealousy, and hate? 
We have arrived at a period in church history when the scene of 
Babel was reenacted upon a wider theatre, God once more de- 
scending to scatter those who were plotting against His supremacy. 

It becomes necessary for us to survey the subject of church 
authority in matters of doctrine from a different standpoint. "We 
have accepted the theory that the decree of a General Council, 
when it has once been ratified by a large majority of the national 
and provincial churches, is to be received with unquestioning sub- 
mission, on the ground that it has then become an authoritative 
utterance of that Church to which was promised the Holy Spirit's 
infallible guidance. At the same time it must be apparent to all 
who will be at the pains of thinking about the matter, that there 
is no guarantee, other than our Lord's covenant, that, not only a 
large proportion, but the whole mass, of the Church would not 
lapse into error. If that body contained none but good and sin- 
cere men, and if good and sincere men always held the truth, 
then the conclusion that the voice of the Church must be the voice 
of God would be irrefragable ; but, unfortunately, the fold contains 
many wolves in sheep's clothing, and the sheep themselves often 
straggle away into the wastes of heresy ; and therefore the assur- 
ance which we sought has evaded our grasp. There is no inherent 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 281 

infallibility in the Church; nor is there anything in Scripture to 
forbid our believing that a very large majority of her members 
has, at certain periods, departed from the true standard both in 
faith and morals. It is true that there are those promises upon 
which we have built our theory of general councils, but we are 
not permitted to interpret those blessed and comforting words a 
priori. What Christ's exact meaning was in uttering them we 
can safely decide only by studying their fulfillment in church 
history, since otherwise we would expose ourselves to perils as 
imminent as those of the rash individual who ventures to dogma- 
tize about the exposition of prophecy before the happening of the 
events predicted. After the progress of time has brought about 
the events, then we can look back and wonderingly trace out their 
entire correspondence with the prophecy : so, as the scroll of ec- 
clesiastical history slowly nnrolls itself before ns, we gradually 
ascertain, with some degree of exactness, what the promise that 
it should be guided into all truth signified. The words them- 
selves justified our looking for some kind of divine direction and 
control : more than this, they enabled us to form hypotheses which 
we could verify by reference to the transactions, or resolved them- 
selves into tests by which we could try hypotheses framed from 
these transactions. By such means we arrived at the theory that 
the method by which the mind of the Spirit was to be ascertained, 
consists in assembling a council, and sending down its decrees to 
the various churches, to be finally approved or rejected by them. 
If, therefore, we understand aright the promise of the Church's 
great Head, and are not mistaken in laying down the two requi- 
sites of conciliar action and universal ratification, no decree of a 
council is binding unless sanctioned by the popular voice, and, on 
the other hand, no opinion, however widely it may seem to be 
held, involves the Church's credit until it has been definitely and 
formally promulgated by a recognized deliberative body of that 
vast corporation. 

Had the Church preserved its unity much beyond the period 
at which we have paused to glance around us and take the bear- 
ings of certain points, we can hardly doubt that erroneous dogmas 
would have been saddled upon it. In order to avert so dire a 
calamity, Providence made the assembling of a general council 
impossible, by ordering that just at that juncture the forces of dis- 
ruption should overcome the power of adhesion which had so long 



282 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

kept them under restraint, and permanently divide the organi- 
zation into two nearly equal portions. Or, if any one objects to 
the use of phraseology which seems to make the All-good, even 
remotely, responsible for an evil, let us say that, when God ap- 
pointed general councils to be the means by which He w r ould fence 
iu revealed truth with authoritative formulas, He foresaw that as 
soon as they should threaten to become instrumental in destroying 
the faith, the wickedness of man would culminate in a catastrophe 
which would render it thenceforth impossible to hold such a synod. 
But, it will be demanded, if the Church was split into halves, 
must not one of these have ceased to be the Church, for otherwise 
there would no longer have been one body of Christ, since two 
would have equal claim to the title and honor ? Is such reason- 
ing, we would reply, very cogent ? When a family quarrel be- 
comes so violent that, like Lot and Abraham, the members are 
obliged to share the land between them, do they cease to be the 
children of one common ancestor, lose the features and traits of 
character which are derived from that source, and forfeit their 
titles to the inheritance ? We are very much disposed to think 
that there are ties which survive any loss of external unity. Di- 
vide the Anglo-Saxon race into a dozen nations, and it would still 
be the same indomitable, enterprising, all-subduing race. So with 
the Church of God : it has a unity which very severe rending 
fails to destroy. But this notion of an internal and inseverable 
bond belongs to the theory of an invisible church, and is altogether 
out of place in a theory built upon the doctrine of a regularly- 
incorporated body ! Not so, unless to insist that man has a body 
amounts to a denial that he has a soul. We do not believe in in- 
visible families, nor in invisible nations or races, though we do 
think that all these are held together, to a very great extent, by 
ligaments that the senses could never discover. The outward, 
visible union of the corporation ecclesiastical was lost, but the 
inner remained without experiencing serious disturbance. The 
mutual excommunication of the two Homes was as though Jacob 
and Esau had continued to reside under their father's roof, each 
refusing to converse with the other and going the length of pro- 
claiming that his brother had forfeited his birthright, and yet both 
still partaking of Isaac's food and enjoying all the privileges of 
sons. Such dissensions are most deplorable, but do not interfere 
with the title of an innocent, or of an offending, child to the pre- 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 283 

rogatives of sonship, until the parent takes the side of one faction 
and drives the other from his hearth. It was a sad day for Chris- 
tianity which saw East and West committed to perpetual hostility ; 
and yet both sections preserved the creeds and the dogmatic faith 
of the undivided Church, retained a valid ministry, and adhered 
to lawful and sufficient methods of administering the sacraments ; 
nor did they intentionally sever themselves from the communion 
of the faithful. If Rome was in the right, Constantinople hon- 
estly thought the contrary. If both were about equally culpable, 
then it is hard to say that either excommunicated herself from the 
Catholic Church by withdrawing from the fellowship of the other. 
In His garden God had planted a tender shoot, which had grown 
upwards and spread outwards, until its magnificence was unsur- 
passed by the stateliest cedar of Lebanon, and its pride threatened 
to poison the currents of its life and convert its smooth-cheeked 
and luscious fruit into apples of Sodom. Down shot the bolt of 
righteous retribution, smiting fair upon the heart of the tree and 
splitting it asunder to the very roots. Eastward and westward 
bent the two halves, looking persistently away from each other, 
till they had grown apart and almost succeeded in themselves 
forgetting, and in causing others to forget, that one common life 
flowed, with the sap, from common roots to the outmost extremities 
of both. Though less strong to resist the hurricane's blast, and 
far less imposing than if symmetrical branches had continued to 
spring gracefully from all sides of a single upright and massive 
trunk, the tree was still in reality but one tree, the very one which 
the Divine Hand had put into the ground and the Divine care 
had nurtured through all the years, growing and flourishing by 
the life its planter had infused into it, presenting the aspect of 
two separate stocks, and yet united indissolubly beneath the sur- 
face in a matted system of roots which, drawing nourishment from 
a light, porous, and rich soil, brought all their tributaries into one 
grand stream, before sending their supplies up through the rival 
trunks. 

The tree may not be killed by a stroke that splits it from top 
to bottom, but it must be seriously injured. How much of its 
strength must be expended in repairing loss and healing wounds ! 
How much, too, has its permanent value been diminished ! And 
who can calculate the amount of detriment which accrued to the 
Church Catholic from the Great Schism ? What immense injury 



284 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

has been done to religion by the unedifying spectacle of the two 
halves of the Christian Church fulminating anathemas at each 
other through centuries of discord ! How have the minds of sin- 
cere inquirers been perplexed by the contradictory claims advanced 
by the two sections ! What waste of force has resulted from the 
directing against each other of efforts that ought to have been 
leveled against sin and heathenism ! And the Church drew down 
upon itself the bolt that so nearly crushed it. Of all offenses 
against the Supreme Euler of the world, that must be the most 
hateful to Him which amounts to a denial of His sovereignty or 
to a direct rejection of it ; and especially must this be true in the 
case of the Church, which He has purchased with His own blood, 
and over which He reigns with a peculiarly loving care. The 
great crime of ancient Israel, the one which first divided it into 
two kingdoms and then drove the various tribes into captivity and 
dispersion, was that of unfaithfulness to Jehovah in the forsaking 
of His altars for those of Baal, Ashtaroth, Moloch, and Mil com. 
The first act of apostasy on the part of the Spiritual Israel was 
when it stooped to kiss the feet of Constantine the Great, seeking 
the support of a despot's arm, in apparent distrust of that mighty 
hand which had so often scattered its enemies before it. A sec- 
ond and worse act occurred when, at the beck of Irene, the Second 
Council of Nice turned, as it were, its back upon the Mercy-seat, 
and fell prone to earth before the rising sun of Image-worship. 
Could God smile upon such rebellion ? He could not, but scourged 
His revolted subjects terribly by the rod of the Arabian impostor, 
whose frantic hordes burst almost literally from the bottomless pit, 
and carried devastation with them over the fairest portions of 
Asia and Africa, not to say Europe, like the locust-swarms of the 
desert ; and finally lighted up the murky heavens with one flash of 
righteous indignation, while the lightning sped upon its errand of 
disruption. If man will fight against God, then ought he to 
expect that God will presently fight against him, and overwhelm 
him with a swift destruction. 

Yet natural causes did not fail to operate and produce their 
due results. The union of Church and State inevitably involved 
the one, more or less, in all the vicissitudes of the other. If the 
Church Catholic allowed itself to become identified with the 
Roman empire, whatever affected the latter must affect the 
former. The enemies of Home would look with disfavor upon 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST 285 

the Church established in her realms. We cannot have failed to 
notice bow tbe quarrels of rival emperors were accompanied by dis- 
putes between the leading prelates of their respective dominions. 
Still, the conservative principle was incomparably stronger in the re- 
ligious than in the civil corporation, as is proved by the multiplicity 
of the convulsions through which the empire had passed before the 
two patriarchs found in Zeno's unfortunate Henoticon a barrier 
sufficient to hold them apart for thirty-five years. Eight years 
previous to Felix's withdrawal of his see from the Byzantine com- 
munion, the last emperor of the "West had dropped from his feeble 
grasp the sceptre which had passed into the hands of llonorius 
when the final division took place upon the death of Theodosius. 
Had the Church not weakened itself by getting into a false posi- 
tion, what a strong band might it not have been to bind together 
the fragments of the once glorious empire of the Caesars ! Would 
not the entire course of history have been far different had it only 
been true to itself, and put its whole reliance upon the Lord God 
of Hosts, instead of entering into forbidden alliances with worldly 
powers \ But having once seated herself in the gilded chair of 
servitude at the invitation of Constantine, the Church could not 
easily rise and choose another. From that time onwards she was 
in a great measure identified with her master, but yet displayed, 
to the very end of the tragedy, a marvelous tenacity of adhesion, 
only yielding to the disruptive agencies when her patience had 
been worn out by repeated failures in her efforts to preserve peace 
within her own borders, and not till long after the Franks had 
finally detached Italy from the Greek empire, which was then 
waning rapidly. 

A dominion which reached over large portions of three con- 
tinents was too vast to be enduring. In the mighty empire of 
Augustus and his successors, the line of cleavage was indicated 
by the seam of contact between the two civilizations which had 
sprung from the two famous peninsulas of Southern Europe. In 
the progress of centuries repeated blows upon the seam produced 
their proper result, and the Church fell asunder, likewise, as soon 
as the force of disruption had time to work upon it. The real 
causes, therefore, of the separation between Rome and Constanti- 
nople were political. Yet there were not wanting such minor 
causes as lay in subjects of controversy which could easily have 
reached an amicable settlement had it not been fur the major ones 



286 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

which lay behind and pushed the others forward. Among these 
secondary agencies, the iconoclastic controversy was not without 
its influence, bat far more important in prolonging, if not in 
creating, the breach was a dispute which turned upon the right 
of the Latins to insert a clause in the creed of the general coun- 
cils. We have purposely omitted to mention the arrogance of 
the Roman pontiff as a cause of disunion, not because we are not 
disposed to allow it great importance, but because we consider it 
in the main a political one, inasmuch as the rise of the papacy 
was due to the connection of the church with the state, and in 
the absence of that unfortunate relation never could have taken 
place. 

The Yisigoths, the barbarians who conquered Spain, long re- 
fused to accept the decrees of Nicsea. At length Hermenegild, 
converted from Arianism by the noble constancy to her faith of 
the Merovingian princess whom he had married, refused to dis- 
honor himself by a repudiation of his real sentiments, and, after 
several unsuccessful attempts against his father's throne, was re- 
luctantly sentenced by him to receive the usual punishment of 
treason. The faith of" Hermenegild and his fair spouse Inguldis 
was professed by his younger brother Recared, who, upon obtain- 
ing the sceptre, proceeded, with great wisdom and moderation, to 
bring his people over to the same profession, and in 589 held a 
provincial synod of seventy bishops at Toledo. This assembly 
undertook the dangerous and unwarrantable task of adding to 
the Nicene Creed, — that formula which had been set forth at the 
first general council, slightly enlarged by the second, and in the 
form it then assumed ratified by three later ones, and, at least im- 
plicitly, by a fourth, — that formula which was fenced around by 
the decrees of six assemblies received as oecumenical by the whole 
of Christendom, — that formula which had been hallowed by the 
devoted attachment and loyal support of saints and martyrs from 
Athanasius and Hilary of Poictiers, from Gregory Nazienzen and 
Theodoret, to Pontianus and Reparatus, to Maximus and Martin, 
— of adding to that venerable and sacred Creed a few words 
which were thought to be required by the immediate emergency. 
Strange that a small gathering of bishops from a single province 
should think itself competent to manufacture a better creed than 
the whole Christian Church had made ! The Fathers, of 381, had 
said of God the Holy Ghost that He proceedeth from the Father, 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 287 

but this did not satisfy the Spaniards. They thought that due 
regard for the honor of the Son required the addition of such 
words as would declare that the Spirit emanates also from Him, 
and so made the sentence run, " Who proceedeth from the Father 
and the Son" the added clause, in the Latin tongue, being 
" Filioque P This innovation maintained its ground, spread into 
France, and was gradually adopted by the whole Western Church, 
but was received with an outcry by the Orientals, and denounced 
for at least two weighty reasons. 

In the first place, the Greeks objected to the clause as an un- 
authorized addition. It is true that great liberty of creed-making 
was permitted in the early church, but this had been curtailed by 
the oecumenical councils. There is no evident impropriety in the 
establishment by universal consent of one carefully drawn formula 
as a symbol of faith for the entire body, the confession of which 
shall entitle any member of the church to communion every- 
where; and when such a step had been taken, no church that 
should presume to alter that creed could shelter itself behind the 
quibble that great latitude had been allowed in the apostolic age. 
If the collective body was not competent to issue a symbol which 
no individual and no particular church would have any right to 
change in the smallest degree, then we must think that its pre- 
tension to be an organized society was one of the merest shams 
that were ever invented. Now, that the Filioque clause was not 
contained in the original creed is beyond question. The Latin 
patriarch himself is on record against it, in a somewhat remark- 
able manner. A complaint having been brought before the synod 
of Aix, in 809, that certain Frankish pilgrims had been harshly 
treated in Jerusalem on account of this addition to the creed, and 
the assembly having ranged itself on the side of their country- 
men, Charlemagne laid the matter before the pope, whereupon 
Leo, although declaring himself a believer in the Double Proces- 
sion, pronounced against the unauthorized insertion of the Clause, 
and had the Creed engraved in Greek and Latin on two silver 
shields, without the Filioque, and set up in St. Peter's. 

The opposition of the Greeks did not rest wholly upon formal 
grounds, but extended to the doctrine expressed, which, they con- 
tended, was subversive of the Father's Monarchy, since it taught 
the existence of two dpxai (archse), or sources, in the Godhead. 
To this the Latins replied that the Holy Ghost was called in 



288 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Scripture the Spirit of the Son as well as of the Father, and that 
the former was said to have authority to send Him into the 
world, and in general that the procession from both the other per- 
sons of the Holy Trinity was the doctrine of the Bible. That the 
temporal mission, or sending forth in time, of the Spirit was at- 
tributable to both the Father and the Son was denied by neither 
party. The dispute turned upon His eternal procession, or origin, 
and was chiefly due to the clumsiness of the Latin language, in 
which the word corresponding to our " proceedeth from " had not 
the fullness of meaning discoverable in the Greek synonym. 
Efcnopevonsvov (Ecporeuomenon) contains the idea of issuing forth 
as from a fountain, whereas the Latin did not imply necessarily any 
more than such a derivation as is expressed in the phrase, Who 
proceedeth from the Father through the Son. All the demands 
of the Latin would be met by a procession from the Son as from 
a medium of communication, whereas the Greek required that 
the Son should be a source, fountain, or independent origin. It 
was not to be expected that the Orientals would regard very com- 
placently an innovation which, according to their idiom, opened 
two distinct springs of being or essence in the Godhead, and con- 
sequently overthrew, by necessary deduction, the very doctrine of 
the Trinity which it had been introduced to support ; for they 
were acute enough to perceive that, if the Son was an independ- 
ent source of the divine substance, He must be an independent 
God. 

The coronation of Charlemagne, in the year 800, as emperor of 
the West severed the last link which bound the Latin patriarch 
to the Byzantine throne, but the century thus inaugurated had 
nearly expired before the firmer bands of religious union had been 
broken, and Rome and Constantinople stood shouting defiance at 
each other across an impassable chasm. The disruption was im- 
mediately occasioned by two men of remarkable character who 
were advanced to those sees, respectively, about the middle of this 
century. The pontificate of Nicholas I. is memorable as the 
commencement of a new era in the history of the papacy. It 
was his peculiar good fortune to be thrown by his ambition itself 
upon the side of the right, to become on two occasions seemingly 
the champion of the oppressed, thus winning to himself popular 
sympathy while striving vigorously to establish precedents utterly 
destructive of law and liberty. His claims to autocratic rule 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 289 

covered both the civil and the ecclesiastical domain. Lothaire, 



brother of Lewis II., then Emperor of Germany, and himself king 
of Lotharingia, having separated from his lawful wife Theutberga, 
and married another, named Waldrada, was by him not only 
threatened with excommunication unless he should reform his 
manner of living, but was also given to understand that the pope 
had doubts of his title to be called king as long as he continued 
the sinful connection : this, of course, was nothing more than 
the faintest premonitory symptom of the unbounded assumption 
regarding the two swords, of temporal and spiritual dominion, 
which Hiidebrand was to put forth. In another affair Nicholas 
successfully intermeddled in the private concerns of the arch- 
bishopric of Rheims on behalf of a suffragan whom Hincmar had 
degraded, but did not subdue the Frankish prelate without a 
severe struggle, nor without having recourse to those Decretals 
which the unscrupulous piety of the age had forged in the name 
of Isidore, a celebrated bishop of Seville in the sixth century. In 
these and other contests ^Nicholas manifested considerable skill 
and determination, and made some little show of courage : he also 
gained some applause. He particularly distinguished himself in a 
struggle which brought him face to face with the most learned 
ecclesiastic of the age. 

It was the crime of Ignatius, as upright and conscientious a 
prelate as ever sat in the chair of Gregory and Chrysostom, to 
have taken the Baptist for his model and rebuked the dissolute 
minister of a dissolute emperor for committing incest with his 
son's widow. To punish his fidelity, Michael III. raised a lay- 
man, on six consecutive days, through the six ordinations (three of 
them being to what are known as minor orders) which had then 
become necessary, and set him in the throne which really be- 
longed to Ignatius. The new honors doubtless sat lightly enough 
upon a head long accustomed to civic triumphs. Already he was 
commander of the imperial guard, first senator of Constantinople, 
and chief private secretary to the emperor, when selected to fill 
the highest position in the Eastern Church. The vast range of 
his erudition and the vigor of his mind gave ample assurance that 
he could cope with the intellectual demands of his station. ]S"or 
is there much in the history of his episcopate to show that the 
emperor's choice had not been even wiser yet, — from the standpoint 
of a licentious monarch anxious to escape the irritation of being 



THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

reprimanded for his misdeeds, or in any way reminded of their 
sinfulness, — as Photius, with all his talents and acquirements, 
seems to have been very little concerned for the interests of true 
religion. 

Nicholas took the part of Ignatius, and refused to recognize 
the usurper. In 862, he held a council at Kome which excom- 
municated Photius and his adherents, and was repaid in the same 
coin by the Eastern patriarch, who manifested singular indiffer- 
ence to the anathemas which had been hurled at him. It is not, 
however, to be supposed that the pope's indignation fed only upon 
pity for Ignatius ; for the old sore of rivalry still rankled, and, al- 
though the image-worshiping Photius gave no provocation on the 
score of iconoclasm, he was no more ready than his predecessors 
to concede to Rome the jurisdiction she claimed over provinces 
which acknowledged the sway of the Eastern emperor, and par- 
ticularly now over Bulgaria, which had lately been converted by 
the Greek Church, but nevertheless leaned in a rather strange 
manner towards the Latins. The battle continued to rage, with 
some intermissions, after Nicholas had been taken from the scene, 
and even after Photius, having been retired by Basil the Mace- 
donian, restored by him on the death of Ignatius, and banished 
by Leo the Philosopher, had ended his life in a monastery of 
Armenia. It is difficult to decide precisely at what date the war- 
fare culminated in a permanent cessation of friendly intercourse, 
but the year 881 may be selected as near enough for ordinary 
purposes. 

It was impossible that the two communions should not come 
more or less into contact with each other, for not only would 
merchants, scholars, and other members of either, invade the ter- 
ritories of the other for purposes of commerce, business, learning, 
and pleasure, but the flags of the powers with which they were 
allied confronted each other on the very soil of Italy. Constanti- 
nople held sway over most of the provinces of southern Europe as 
far towards the Occident as Apulia ; which, however, was at 
length torn from its feeble hold by the terrible adventurers, who 
marched under the banner of William of Hauteville, and made the 
name of the Normans so dreadful to degenerate Asiatic or undis- 
ciplined Italian. The wish would frequently suggest itself to 
prince or patriarch that fraternal relations might be resumed, so 
that the combined strength of their dominions, civil or ecclesi- 



TEE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 291 

astical, might be employed upon a common foe, and the disagree- 
ableness of enmity might be exchanged for the delights and ad- 
vantages of friendly association. In or about the year 1024 Basil 
II., a warlike monarch, negotiated with a pusillanimous pope, 
John XIX., for a peace upon the basis of an acknowledged equal- 
ity of the two sees ; but the feeling was too strong in the West 
against any such concessions of dignity and prerogative to allow 
the prelate to enter into a compact of that nature. The ear of 
Leo the Great or of Nicholas I. could never have been gained to 
a proposal so contrary to their lofty claims, but a succession of 
weak and corrupt occupants had at this time greatly lowered the 
standing, and diminished the influence, of the papacj\ A farther 
insult was offered the Latin Church by Michael Cerularius, patri- 
arch of Constantinople. It seems that mutual courtesy had 
established the custom of permitting the Greeks to use their own 
ritual in Rome, and the Latins theirs in the other capital. Such 
liberality was distasteful to the narrow mind of this ecclesiastic, 
who, not content with closing all the churches of the city in which 
the rites of the Romish ritual were observed and taking other 
measures to suppress the worship of that communion, was inju- 
dicious or malicious enough to write, with the assistance of Leo, 
bishop of Acrida, a passionate letter attacking the entire Western 
Church. Translating this letter into Latin, Cardinal Humbert 
used it to arouse the indignation of Leo IX. The same prelate 
proceeded, with little reluctance, to break a lance in behalf of the 
Roman see by replying in an elaborate and powerful refutation of 
the charges directed against it. The rising flame at once caught 
the eye of Constantine Monomachus, who, in the hope of extin- 
guishing it, immediately addressed himself to the injured prelate 
of the AVest. Leo consented to dispatch three commissioners on 
an embassy to Constantinople, among whom was the cardinal who 
had already shown a tendency to assume the championship. The 
negotiations did not go on smoothly, for neither the delegates nor 
Michael were likely to yield a single point. The emperor threw 
the weight of his influence into the Roman scale, but could not 
overcome the inflexible determination of the patriarch to make no 
concessions, and not even to hold any intercourse with the dele- 
gates. However, an incendiary production of a certain Nicetas 
was committed to the flames, and he himself compelled publicly, 
not only to retract what he had written, but to acknowledge the 



292 THE CHVBGH AND THE FAITH. 

supremacy of the Western patriarch. Then the legates entered 
the church of St. Sophia, and, having condemned Michael and his 
followers, placed upon the altar a document stating this fact in 
fiery language. But a licentious and feeble ruler could neither 
shield the envoys from the rising wrath of the populace, nor per- 
severe in the course which his own dignity pointed out. After 
the legates had profited by a hint he contrived to give them and 
withdrawn from the city, he was obliged to surrender at discretion. 
The haughty patriarch and his council, in the year 1054, hurled 
back the anathemas of Rome. Thus, instead of being closed up, 
the breach had been widened. Henceforth a new subject of con- 
troversy is to part the churches and afford opprobrious epithets to 
be freely used whenever the strife grows hotter than usual. The 
names Azymites and Prozymites shall designate those who be- 
lieve, with Eome, that unleavened bread was employed at the 
institution of the Lord's Supper, and ought to be sedulously pro- 
vided for every celebration of the Eucharist, and those who think, 
with Constantinople and the remaining patriarchates, that the 
common, leavened bread of every-day use will both fulfill all the 
requirements and proprieties of the case, and also more exactly 
symbolize the doctrine which is intended to be taught in this 
sacrament. 

The Crusades had the effect of bringing the Latins into closer 
proximity to the Greeks than was pleasing either to the state or 
to the church of the latter. The ingenuity of the Byzantines was 
sufficiently exercised during the first three of those movements in 
diverting from themselves the ambitious, avaricious, and warlike 
projects of the numerous hosts who flung themselves upon trem- 
bling Asia. At length the day came when Venetian galleys, 
laden with martial pilgrims, after having reduced Zara to subjec- 
tion, swept by the Queen of the Bosporus and came to anchor in 
the harbor of Chalcedon. Disregarding the anathemas of Pope 
Innocent III., the leaders had lent a ready ear to the urgings of 
the young Alexius, who had been traveling through portions of 
Europe in the hope of inducing some of its valiant rulers to under- 
take the cause of his deposed father. The promises of this prince 
that he and his father would, immediately upon regaining power, 
submit themselves to the Latin patriarch, and that he would 
furnish them with valuable assistance against the Saracens, en- 
abled Dandolo and his coadjutors to reconcile their consciences to 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST 293 

such a departure from their original plan as was involved in a 
siege of Constantinople. Evidently some master mind controlled 
their counsels, and one of great independence and courage, too. 
That leader the maritime republic had given them in a man whose 
heroic soul rose superior to the weight of more years than are 
allotted to man and to the greater disadvantage of sightlessness. 
Frank valor and Venetian skill proved an overmatch for the languid 
strength of the reigning Alexius, who fled under cover of the 
night and took refuge in Thrace. Isaac Angel us was rescued from a 
dungeon, and crowned, together with his son, beneath the dome 
of St. Sophia. The Latins strenuously urged the fulfillment of 
the stipulations that had been made them before they turned 
their prows towards the Dardanelles. Alexius could not overcome 
the repugnance of his subjects to concessions so degrading in their 
eyes as those which were to chain them to the footstool of the 
pope. While he temporized, occidental patience gradually became 
exhausted, till three envoys from each of the two allied nations 
rode through an angry mob, advanced into the imperial presence, 
and bade defiance to the astonished sovereigns. The war was 
renewed. Constantinople endured a second siege, and had to 
submit to the horrors of a sack. The count of Flanders ascended 
the throne under the name of Baldwin I., in the year 1204 ; and 
thus was established a Latin empire in Constantinople. During 
its brief existence the Greek Church suffered much humiliation ; 
but speedily emerged from the shadow when Michael Palseologus, 
in 1261, wrenched the sceptre from the hated foreigners and re- 
stored it to the successors of Constantine. However, a party 
favorable to the Western doctrines had in the meantime grown 
up. Its strength was partly due to the negotiations of John 
Vatatzes, an able prince, who from Kice as a base had striven to 
erect once more the fallen monarchy, and with a view to com- 
passing that end had sought to win the countenance of the pope. 
In connection with Germanus, the Byzantine bishop, he had made 
overtures to the Roman see, which drew thence an embassage 
charged with a somewhat conciliatory commission. There the 
matter had ended, except that a not unimportant party sprang up 
disposed to content themselves with the permission to omit the 
Filioque, and with such other concessions as were offered them. 
Michael Palaeologus sought to strengthen himself on the newly 
recovered throne by pushing forward similar measures, and actu- 



294 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ally went the length of formally recognizing the primacy of the 
pope at the council of Lyons, July 6th, 1274, by the submission 
of a large delegation comprised of Germanus, formerly patriarch 
of Constantinople, the metropolitan of Caesarea, and other digni- 
taries who were under the influence of the court. Joseph was 
deposed from the patriarchal throne because of his invincible op- 
position to the treaty, and a man exalted into his place who had 
been brought over by the argument of a prison-cell ; but nothing 
could overcome the universal repugnance of the Greeks, which 
of course triumphed very speedily. Finding that a persistent at- 
tempt to enforce the Union would alienate many even of his 
nearest kin and closest friends from him, the emperor could evince 
no warmth in carrying out the treaty he had been at so much 
pains to make. Upon his devoted head descended, in 1281, the 
bolt of papal excommunication, finishing his disgrace, and per- 
haps hastening his death, which, the next year, was the signal for 
the dispersion of the Latin party. 

Dandolo had taught the Greek Empire that its capital was not 
impregnable. From the day that the banner of St. Mark led the 
crusaders victorious through the streets of Constantinople, that 
city trembled at the distant or near sound of the Turkish march, 
and naturally turned for protection to the Christian nations of 
Europe. When the emir Orchan was rapidly reducing city after 
city of Bithynia, and planting the crescent in sight of the imperial 
palace, Andronicus III. Palaeologus, bethought him to send am- 
bassadors, among whom was the learned monk Barlaam, to solicit 
peace from Pope Benedict XII., who " kept his state " at Avignon. 
John Cantacuzene opened equally fruitless negotiations with the 
princely and dissolute Clement YL, and then, threatened on every 
side and justly alarmed for the safety of his throne, John Palaeo- 
logus I. humbled himself before Urban Y. at the Yatican itself. 
The fated period drew nigh which was to witness the overthrow 
of Constantine's marvelously long-lived empire. At length the 
cannon of Amurath hurled their death-dealing missiles over the 
Byzantine walls, proclaiming in voices of thunder that the end 
was at hand, now that an agent of destruction had been found 
against which that ancient dependence, Greek-fire, could not hope 
to hold its own. No expedient suggested itself to the reigning 
prince but the old one of appealing to Western Christendom. The 
time was a peculiarly favorable one, too, for addressing the Latins, 



TEE SCEISM OF TEE EAST AND WEST. 295 

since they were at strife among themselves, and either party 
would, therefore, welcome the opportunity of winning prestige by 
bringing about a reunion with the Orient. The great council of 
Basle had, in 1431, undertaken several most important tasks, 
among which were those of reuniting the two sections of Chris- 
tendom and of reforming the Church in its head and members ; 
and manifested so creditable a spirit of independence that the 
Vatican had become alarmed, and sought to remove it to Bologna, 
in order to subject it to those influences which the curia knew so 
well how to wield. The council had refused to obey the papal 
command, and even dared to summon Eugenius TV. before it. 
He first sent, and then withdrew, delegates, and afterwards con- 
vened an opposing council at Ferrara, soon removing it to Flor- 
ence ; but was condemned and excommunicated, together with all 
the members of his synod, and finally deposed, by the assembly 
at Basle. 

Xot being fettered by the necessity of holding prolonged con- 
ferences before the proper method of action could be decided 
upon, Eugenius promptly dispatched nine galleys to transport the 
sacred persons of the emperor and his attendant prelates safely 
across the seas. The vessels of the synod arrived at the Golden 
Horn somewhat later than their rivals, but nevertheless waited 
hopefully for the decision of the wavering emperor. The council 
had been scarcely less impolitic in its language than tardy in its 
movements, and had actually called the Greek faith an old heresy, — 
not a very complimentary title, surely ! Palseologus himself, ac- 
companied by Joseph of Constantinople, Mark of Ephesus, Dio- 
nysius of Sardis, Bessarion of Nicgsa, the metropolitans of Hera- 
clea, Cyzicus, Mcomedia, and Trebizond, and others, embarked 
in the papal fleet and set sail for Venice, at which city a reception 
awaited him which showed what a republic could do when dis- 
posed to honor a distinguished visitor. Glad to escape from a city 
decorated with the spoils of his own metropolis, and from being 
constantly reminded of the days which saw the Lion of St. Mark 
and the Eagles of Home haughtily triumphant on the banks of the 
Bosporus, he presently entered Ferrara in state, was intercepted 
when he would have bent the knee before his Highness the Pope, 
and, after having been welcomed with a paternal embrace, was 
honorably seated at the left hand of the papal chair. The patri- 
arch demanded and received a scarcely less honorable reception, 



296 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

nor were the other bishops behind their chief in manifesting inde- 
pendence : they had no mind to degrade themselves by performing 
the customary act of fealty and kissing the feet of his Excellence. 
After all his trouble, Eugenius perhaps reflected, not without sad- 
ness, that he had not accomplished much that would advance his 
projects, or strengthen him against the Basle assembly. Palaeo- 
logus even disputed the presidency of the synod, but was reminded 
that, when Constantine or Theodosius directed the deliberations of 
the assembled bishops, the lordly prelate of Rome had not been 
personally present. 

A scarcity of Western bishops delayed the proceedings, and 
the breaking out of a plague was made the occasion of moving the 
assembly to Florence, but in the year 1439 all things seemed to 
have converged towards a favorable issue, agreement having been 
reached upon all the disputed topics. To be sure, the Latin side 
had won a complete triumph, and imposed their own views regard- 
ing the Double Procession and the Filioque, Purgatory, and the 
Papal Supremacy upon the Oriental delegates, and had persuaded 
them to acknowledge the lawfulness of using unleavened bread in 
the Eucharist ; but the Greeks had lain under no compulsion in 
yielding their assent, and might pardonably indulge the hope that 
a treaty which had received the sanction of so many learned dig- 
nitaries would not be rejected by those whom they represented. 
On a memorable day, July 6th, 1439, two ecclesiastics read the 
act of Union in their respective languages from the pulpit of the 
Florentine cathedral, and then embraced each other in the sight 
of the two peoples. One of these was Cardinal Julian, the other 
was no less a personage than the celebrated Bessarion, who forsook 
the archbishopric of Nicsea for the red hat of a cardinal, and trans- 
ferred all his learning and ability to the permanent service of the 
Western Church. After this transaction the Roman liturgy was 
proceeded with, and the creed chanted with its unauthorized 
addition. 

The emperor and the prelates returned as they had come, 
except Joseph, who had breathed his last, and Bessarion. Did 
they feel any sinking of the heart, premonitory of the fate that 
awaited them ? Where were the succors which they had expected 
to bring back with them ? Where, the tokens of the victories they 
had been so sure of winning over the dull minds of the West? 
Instead of these they bore with them a treaty of peace which was 



THE SCHISM OF THE EAST AND WEST. 297 

simply disgraceful. The indignation of the populace, we may 
well believe, expressed itself in mutterings and derisive shouts, 
and in persistent non-attendance upon the ministrations of the 
faithless deputies. The successor of Joseph officiated in an empty 
church. The primate of Russia, who had also attended at Flor- 
ence, was deposed, and consigned to a monastery : he escaped with 
difficulty from the rage of a justly-incensed people. Mark of 
Ephesus alone had stood out against all arguments and persuasions, 
and refused to sign the concordat : consequently the admiring 
regard and love of the people surrounded him with the glory of 
a hero. 

In 1453 Mahomet II. profaned St. Sophia with the shadow of 
the crescent and the accursed sound of an impious prayer, and the 
Greek Empire had ceased to exist, — though not the Greek Church. 



CHAPTEE XYI. 

THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 

Greek civilization and the Greek race have been tried and 
found wanting, as the Jewish had been before them. The Gospel 
was, first of all, offered to a nation most admirably fitted, in every 
way except one, to receive it. Fifteen centuries of education had 
so thoroughly indoctrinated the national mind with certain neces- 
sary ideas, and so thoroughly perfected the organization of the 
Church which God had given a claim upon the allegiance of the 
people, that the one ought to have received the new revelation 
with eagerness and satisfaction, and to have understood it with 
ease and accuracy; while the other should have spontaneously 
converted itself into a most powerful instrument for preserving, 
defending, and promulgating it. Had the Jewish Church only, 
as a church, accepted the Gospel, how differently would have read 
the chronicles of history ! ~No insignificant race, is that Jewish. 
Had it consecrated to the new Faith its noble qualities of intellect, 
its enterprising spirit, its indomitable courage, and its high capa- 
bility of endurance, there would have been no necessity for 
making choice of another race to bear the brunt of the struggle. 
But the Jew threw away the golden opportunity ; which was then 
presented to a people, endowed with even superior powers of intel- 
lect, and basking in the noontide of the most advanced civilization 
that the world had yet witnessed. For a while, the Greeks stood forth 
as champions of the truth, and performed wonders in shielding it 
from the furious assaults of heresy ; but gradually all mental energy 
seems to slip from them, they become mere conservators of tra- 
dition, and even, as their civilization retrogrades into effeteness, 
allow the traditional faith itself to be tampered with. The Ro- 
mans, who have partly borne the same burden and shared the 
same exalted calling, after having demonstrated on many a field 
their fidelity to those statements which they had recognized as true 



THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 299 

when drawn up and defended by the astnter Greeks, have fol- 
lowed them in their downfall. Christianity participates in the 
westward march of empire. Where Caesar's legions had bridged 
swollen streams, forced their way through trackless forests, or 
watched incessantly for the ambuscades of Yercingetorix, a new 
civilization was slowly growing up. The barbarians had easily 
overwhelmed the scattered provinces of the "West, but had, in their 
turn, been subdued by those whom they had vanquished in arms. 
The language, laws, and learning of the Latins proved themselves 
too strong to be eradicated or supplanted, and, absorbing into 
themselves everything that was worth appropriating among the 
manners and customs of the conquerors, gradually brought the 
vigorous Goths, Franks, or Lombards under their dominion, and 
thus gave birth to a new, fresh, and solid civilization, which had 
this great advantage over the old, that it had incorporated into 
itself many valuable Christian principles, and was therefore built 
upon a more enduring foundation. The Frankish intellect soon 
manifests great activity, considerable versatility, respectable breadth 
and strength, some profundity, and unusual judiciousness. While 
a fatal lethargy settles down upon the Greeks, after John Damas- 
cenus and Photius have gilded the sunset sky of that communion ; 
while North Africa is suffering from Saracenic invasion, and 
almost equally from the encroachments of the sands ; while Home 
is killing out all independence of thought with the blight of spirit- 
ual despotism, a powerful empire is consolidating beyond the 
Alps which inherits at once the hardy, fearless, unfettered mind 
of the barbarian, and the culture, experience, skill, and knowl- 
edge of the Latin. Thither let us turn for scholars and divines, 
for philosophical discussions of controverted points, for able expo- 
sitions of the faith which was committed to the custody of the 
saints. Having already seen the Franks playing a conspicuous 
part in two such controversies as those concerning Predestination 
and Image-worship, we should be less surprised at discovering 
them in the characters of originators of a discussion that has 
well-nigh outlived those two, important as they were, and tenacious 
of existence as they were also, and attended their funerals in 
seemly robes of mourning. 

The progress of the Iconoclastic controversy revealed the 
gradual development of a tendency to obliterate the distinctions 
between the ideal and the sensuous, and to confound the repre- 



300 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

sentation or symbol with the thing represented or symbolized. 
The retrogression of mind during those centuries in which the 
old-world civilization, its agonies having been hastened by the 
ruthless violence of the barbaric invaders, was undergoing the 
throes of parturition preparatory to the birth of one which should 
be higher and better, gave free scope to certain proclivities which 
are latent in the most enlightened bosom. Ridiculous as it ap- 
pears to an educated understanding that any person should mis- 
take a plaster image for the Being who made the universe, the fact, 
nevertheless, is that countless myriads of souls have been, and are, 
not far removed from that absurd and brutal error, and that 
numerous individuals of high culture and no small mental power 
allow imagination or fancy to get the upper hand of judgment 
and convert shadow into substance. The dispute about images 
could not, in the very nature of things, have continued very long 
without leading to a discussion concerning the consecrated ele- 
ments and their relation to the person and natures of our Lord. 
As He Himself is, according to the author of the Epistle to the 
Hebrews, "the brightness of" the Father's " glory, and the ex- 
press image of His person," so the bread and wine are, after con- 
secration, closely related to the God-man whose flesh and blood 
they have become. If they have been elevated into actual par- 
ticipation of His humanity, then, being part and parcel of Him, 
they may seem to deserve the same adoration which is due to 
Him ; while if they are mere symbols of an absent Christ, they 
still may arrogate to themselves a certain degree of veneration, 
equal to that which is so freely granted by some to pictures of the 
Saviour. 

In 831 there emanated from the active brain of a Frankish 
monk, who was to preside over the celebrated monastery of Cor- 
bey, a treatise which has made the name of its author, Paschasius 
Radbert, famous as that of the originator of the First Eucharistic 
Controversy. Warin, abbot of New Corbey, possibly little sus- 
pected what a fire he was kindling when he requested his former 
master to compose a book upon the Eucharist for the benefit of 
the daughter monastery. Paschasius took very extreme positions, 
teaching that the unlimited power of God, while suffering the 
appearance of the material substances to remain unchanged, ac- 
tually converts the elements into the same body which was born 
of the Yirgin Mary and crucified under Pontius Pilate, the mis- 



TEE EUCHABISTIG CONTROVERSY. 301 

leading semblance being left in order to try the faith of the wor- 
shipers, and remind them that sight, feeling, and taste are not 
the means by which we feed upon the Word of God. The way 
for the acceptance of this doctrine had been paved by such mir- 
acles as those, of changing water into wine and multiplying so 
amazingly the loaves and fishes, which displayed so clearly the 
control of God over the forces and laws of the visible world. It 
was said to be no more difficult to credit the miraculous increase 
of Christ's body through the incorporation into it of the sacred 
elements than to believe in the unexampled birth from a virgin. 
Such was the general drift of the revised copy which Paschasius 
sent to Charles the Bald, at his imperial request, a few years later. 
The learned abbot probably did not suppose that he was fabri- 
cating an entirely new theory, and one which was destined to 
have very pernicious results; but had committed the very com- 
mon mistake of translating rhetoric into logic. It will not always 
answer to affix a strict literal interpretation to the glowing im- 
agery of Oriental oratory. The fervid language of a Chrysostom 
was not likely to deceive an audience that was in perfect sym- 
pathy with him, but could hardly bear the test of cold reasoning ; 
not that it was really illogical or false, but that it could be made 
to seem so when viewed through a denser medium. It is not at 
all surprising that this treatise occasioned considerable commo- 
tion, and drew forth replies from various leading divines, fore- 
most among whom was Habanus Maurus, archbishop of Mentz 
and the ablest teacher, and disputant, and writer of his day and 
nation. A pupil of his, named Walafrid Strabo, also engaged in 
the warfare, as did Christian Druthmar and others. Two distin- 
guished authors were directed by Charles to give him in writing 
their opinions on the subject. In compliance with this request, 
the freethinking Scotus (John Scotus Erigena) gave forth a work 
which has perished, but is supposed to have rationalized away all 
meaning out of the sacrament and reduced it to a bare commemo- 
ration. The other scholar was one who had previously been con- 
sulted by the same sovereign on the subject of predestination, and 
enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best theologians of his 
time. Ratram, although embarrassed by his position as a monk 
of Corbey, nevertheless expressed convictions wholly at variance 
with those of his abbot, and supported them with much clearness 
and cogency in a celebrated treatise, " Concerning the Body and 



302 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Blood of the Lord," which afterwards enjoyed the high honor of 
converting Bishop Ridley and the English Church from Tran- 
substantiation. He undertakes to answer two questions : First, 
whether there is any real change of the elements at all, or not ; 
and secondly, whether, supposing that there is an alteration, the 
transformation is one into the same body which Christ had on 
earth. He reasons very forcibly that any actual change must 
manifest itself to the senses, and that, inasmuch as the senses are 
not cognizant of any change whatever, the only supposable trans- 
mutation is an invisible, spiritual one, which takes place for the 
benefit of man's soul. Then, as regards the second division of 
his subject, he distinguishes between two methods of viewing it, 
and says that in a true and proper sense the elements do not be- 
come the actual risen body of Christ, but that they do become so 
in an improper and spiritual sense, inasmuch as they are the 
" image and pledge " of it. 

Although holding the unpopular view, Paschasius was by no 
means without supporters, but numbered among them such promi- 
nent men as Hay mo of Halberstadt, who had been a fellow-student 
of archbishop Maurus and was not altogether unworthy of having 
a name associated with his in the republic of letters, and Hincmar, 
the sturdy resister of papal aggression. The various contestants 
relied much upon the authority of those illustrious Fathers, Am- 
brose of Milan and Augustine of Hippo, the latter of whom was 
beginning to exert an almost despotic sway over the Latin church. 
Radbert's book is for the observant reader of history a sort of 
channel-buoy, which serves the double purpose of indicating which 
way the tide is setting and how high it has risen. The flood tide 
of realism or materialism had evidently begun, but had not yet 
acquired sufficient power to turn the current, except close along 
the sheltered banks, although it had perceptibly checked its flow. 
Let us take advantage of the slack water and easy navigation to 
cast the lead and study our charts, preparatory to rushing along 
with the full sweep of the rising river. 

In attempting, then, to understand the language of Holy 
Scripture in reference to the Eucharist, a proper starting-point 
seems to be an examination of the testimony of our senses, in 
regard to their reliability. Beyond dispute, our eyes testify that 
the bread and wine wear the same outward appearance after the 
consecration, and our hands and palates proclaim that no differ- 






THE EUCHARISTIO CONTROVERSY. 303 

ence can be perceived between consecrated and nnconsecrated 
bread and wine. JSTor is this merely negative evidence ; for, if the 
bread and wine are converted into anything, they are converted 
into flesh and blood; but our senses of sight, feeling, and taste, in 
conjunction, are surely competent to pronounce whether certain 
food is flesh and blood, or bread and wine ; and they do unequiv- 
ocally declare that what the priest puts into our mouths is not 
flesh and blood, but positively and without a shadow of a doubt 
bread and wine. Now, we must either accept or reject the testi- 
mony of our senses, it not being at all reasonable to build upon it 
or pass it by just as we happen to be inclined at the moment. 
Shall we reject the testimony of our senses ? How, then, can we 
ever be convinced that our Saviour opened the eyes of the blind, 
enabled the lame to walk, or fsd the multitude % Indeed, how 
shall we ever answer the Docetse, when they tell us that His 
body was nothing more than a phantom ? Of what significance 
is the handling of- His wounds by the doubting Thomas to a man 
who yields no credence to his own senses ? Had such a man stood 
full before the glorious Sufferer and beheld His face stained with 
blood and His back furrowed by the scourge, had he lifted Him 
with his own hands from the accursed tree, had he gazed upon 
Him after His resurrection while eating the common viands sup- 
plied by the disciples, that man would have had no ground what- 
ever for believing that the Saviour actually was crucified, or that 
He actually rose again. Nor can we stop even at this low grade 
of skepticism, for an iron necessity is upon us and drags us down 
to the lowest abyss of unbelief; since, if a man cannot trust to 
his senses, he knows nothing whatever about the external world 
or himself. Unless we wish to embrace such foul consequences, 
we must accept the witness of those senses which the God who 
created us surely did not give in order to deceive us. The Bible 
discloses to us many mysteries which are hidden from our bodily 
organs, teaches us to see hosts of angels encamped around us, to 
fear before the all -seeing eye of an Omnipotent God, and even to 
believe that angels and the Son of God Himself have taken human 
forms for temporary purposes ; it informs us that Christ exercised 
incomprehensible power over the agencies of the natural world ; 
but never does it call upon us to confess that what we see does 
not really exist, or what we have heard was not really spoken. 
On the contrary, it recognizes tacitly the incapacity under which 



304 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

it labors of addressing us at all, or of persuading us, except 
through an appeal to one or more of our senses. It is un- 
doubtedly true that eyes and ears become organically diseased 
or are temporarily disordered by mental excitement, so that there 
is need to correct their verdicts by the judgment ; but we would 
desire to be told how it is possible that there should be any irregu- 
lar action in the case now before us. Can it be that the collective 
verdict of all who have ever communed is wrong, and that the 
bread, after all, is flesh, and the wine, blood ? 

Again, we are distinctly taught that Christ resumed His body 
on the third day after that body had been nailed to the cross, that 
He retained it till the fortieth day after His resurrection, that He 
ascended with it into the Heaven of heavens, disappearing with it 
from the tearful eyes of His disciples, and that He sat down with 
it at the right hand of His Father, awaiting the appointed hour 
for Him to return in it to this earth and judge the living and the 
dead. In that same body, still bearing the wounds of the thorns, 
and the marks of the nails, and the ridges of the lash, — the glori- 
ous scars of these as monuments of His unrivaled victories, — He 
now stands interceding for us, miserable sinners, who would not 
dare, without such an advocate, to approach the mercy-seat. That 
body was not an imaginary, phantasmagorical body, but one of 
real flesh and blood derived from the Virgin-mother ; and even 
after the resurrection it was not freed from conditions of space, for 
the blessed lips assured Mary Magdalene that He had not yet 
ascended into Heaven. In short, the risen and glorified body of 
Christ is in heaven, and not on earth. That it is joined in indis- 
soluble personal union with Divinity is no more a reason why it 
should partake of the attributes of deity than the existence of the 
same conjunction was a reason why Christ's body should have been 
everywhere present while it was on earth. 

Furthermore, the body of which we partake in the Holy Eu- 
charist, if we partake of any, is not the glorified body at all. 
When Christ spoke the celebrated words of institution, He was 
not yet beyond His hour of greatest humiliation ; He Himself, not 
yet crucified, is there, in plain sight of all, in His own proper form, 
lifts with His human hand common bread, the same which the 
disciples had been eating, and solemnly declares, " This is my 
body which is given for you;" takes a cup, filled with com- 
mon wine, and says, " This is my blood which is shed for 



THE EUGHABISTIC CONTROVERSY. 305 

you." Plainly that bread and wine are not the body of the Lord 
in actuality, either of humiliation or of glory, for there is the 
frame of the well-known Master whole before their eyes ; and, if 
these difficulties could be removed, the insurmountable one would 
still confront us, that much stress is put upon the breaking and the 
shedding, far too much to allow of our interpreting the words of 
Christ's glorified body. But no body of Christ actually exists 
anywhere except the risen body which is glorified in the heavens 
above : therefore no actual presence of a crucified body is possible 
in the Communion. 

"We cannot permit the conclusion thus reached to be shaken 
by any arguments that may be brought against it from the armory 
of faith, for we cannot stand passive, and let the ground be cut 
from beneath our feet, and ourselves be buried under a promiscu- 
ous ruin of science, philosophy, and religion. What we shall do 
with the conclusion, what is its exact meaning, how far we shall 
press it, — these are questions which we must prepare ourselves to 
examine with great caution ; but the conclusion itself, as a con- 
clusion, must be held at the risk of our lives. It may present a for- 
bidding aspect ; it may detach us from our friends ; it may even seem 
to carry us over to the infidel camp. ~No matter ! The conclu- 
sion has been duly and logically reached, is so far from being 
unreasonable that the contrary opinion is not even supposable, 
and has the sanction of primitive antiquity and of a long and full 
catena of the ablest and most orthodox authorities. Let us dismiss 
all wavering and plant ourselves firmly upon our chosen ground ; 
and yet let us be sure that this one-sided view has not revealed to 
us the whole of the truth. 

Having now proved that Christ is not present in the Holy 
Eucharist, we will proceed to show that He is present therein. 
If, as we most firmly believe, He is God consubstantial with the 
Father, He must be everywhere, and consequently cannot be 
absent from the church, altar, paten : moreover, since, notwith- 
standing the omnipresence of the divine essence, it may be espe- 
cially localized, as it were, by a sort of concentrated presence in a 
given spot, He may very properly be revered as resting in unusual 
plenitude of divine majesty, not only within the consecrated walls 
which surround the devout congregation, but still more where the 
consecrated symbols repose upon the holy table. "Wherever the 
Godhead of Christ is, there Christ is, and Christ is always and for- 



306 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

ever man as well as God. It is not intended to be asserted that 
Christ is everywhere for the purpose of being worshiped, — that it 
would be right to prostrate ourselves before a stone edifice and 
say our prayers to it, because the Lord vouchsafes to be in the 
midst of two or three gathered together in His name, — but that, 
as Jehovah was pleased to fill Solomon's temple with His visible 
glory, and to dwell permanently between the cherubim within the 
Holy of Holies, so He dignifies the Christian Church with a real, 
if invisible, excellence of divine radiance hovering above and 
around the altar of sacrificial commemoration. 

He is there also representatively through the Holy Ghost, who 
is His vicar, by whose agency it comes to pass both that the ele- 
ments are purified and made ready for the ministerial act of God's 
anointed priest, whereby, through the same instrumentality, they 
are converted into symbols of divine love, and also that the souls 
and bodies of the faithful are sanctified and prepared for the re- 
ception of those pledges. 

Besides these kinds of presence, there is requisite, in order to 
justify the language of the Bible, a presence and communication 
of His body, that very body which was crucified for us. Nothing 
less than that can satisfy the requirements of the words of Insti- 
tution, which not only declare that the elements are the body and 
blood of Christ, but call upon the disciples to partake of them on 
that very ground. More emphatic still were the teachings of our 
Saviour in the synagogue of Capernaum, on that memorable oc- 
casion when many of His own disciples were offended at Him and 
left Him, because they did not see how He could give them His 
flesh to eat. Why did He not remove the stumbling-block out of 
their path by the simple and obvious explanation, that He did not 
mean anything more than that they should feed upon His doctrine f 
Why did He not guard them against the misapprehension that 
they were in some way to press His flesh with their teeth ? There 
can be but one answer : Because He had intended to clothe in 
those words some truth of deep mysteriousness which could not 
be conveyed in more appropriate phraseology, some fact of the 
invisible world which must be taught at any risk. If, on the one 
hand, it may lead to absurdity and superstition to insist upon the 
strict literal rendering of every passage in the revealed Word, so, 
on the other hand, the barren wastes of materialism must be 
reached, sooner or later, by the interpreter who resolves all difficult 



THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY. 307 

declarations and allusions into mere metaphor, allegory, and 
type. 

And thus once more we stand perplexed between two con- 
tradictions. Shall we come down from the position we so confi- 
dently assumed a little while since, and admit that we must have 
been mistaken about the impossibility of an actual alteration of 
the elements into that of which they are the symbols? Shall we 
confess that the crucified body of Christ is actually and really 
present in the Eucharist ? We will not leave our vantage ground 
till we are unable to hold it an}' longer, and that time has not 
arrived yet : at present we do not perceive what we could expect 
to gain by so doing, for, should we confess that the flesh and blood 
are really there in material substance, we would not be one step 
nearer to the understanding of how carnal flesh and blood can be 
eaten by the spirit of man. The idea that Christ's body is to be 
crushed by our teeth and subjected to the digestive action of our 
systems, is so revolting as to send a shudder through us at the bare 
mention of it. The only imaginable or credible feeding is one in 
which the spirit alone has part : the body may and does eat the 
symbols, but what alone can feed upon the realities is the imma- 
terial portion of man's complex nature, which cannot masticate 
and absorb material substances by any conceivable or inconceiv- 
able process. The spirit cannot eat corporeal things ; it is only 
able to appropriate incorporeal nourishment. We might just as 
well invite a famished traveler to regale himself upon the abstruse 
and difficult pages of ISfewton's Principia or Laplace's Mechanique 
Celeste and the lighter verses of Milton or Southej 7 , as think to 
satisfy the cravings of a sinful and struggling spirit by setting 
before it a repast of carnal flesh and blood. "They drank of that 
spiritual Rock that followed them ; and that Rock was Christ ; " 
" He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his 
belly shall flow rivers of living water;" — how will the literalists 
deal with such passages as these 1 Man's immortal nature can 
feed upon the benefits that accrue to it by reason of the breaking 
of Christ's blessed body and the shedding of His blessed blood, and 
these benefits can be specially conveyed to it by the Great High- 
priest through the intervention of a ceremony well calculated to 
lift the heart in faith, love, and adoration towards His eternal 
Throne. In such a banquet the crucified body is both absent and 
present, — absent to the senses, to the understanding, and absent 



308 * THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

in every corporeal, carnal, and material sense ; but present to faith, 
present as to the receiving of all possible advantages that can 
proceed from a partaking of it, and therefore present in the lofty 
ideal reality of a transcendental conception. Is such a reality no 
reality at all ? Not unless there is no reality in that which en- 
ables the sorely-tried soul of the sinner, rising victorious above 
the power of temptation and the fascination of this world, to lay 
firm hold upon eternal life. We cannot take Everlasting Life up 
in our hands, turn it over, and strike it with the geologist's ham- 
mer ; nor has it any material existence of any kind whatever : 
is it therefore a nonentity ? No more can we handle or examine 
the sacramental body of Christ, or convince ourselves that it has 
any material being or any corporeal presence ; but must we then 
sadly admit to ourselves that in holding, as the Holy Catholic 
Church has instructed us to do, firmly to the reality of our feeding 
upon it, by faith, in the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, we have 
been amusing ourselves with a golden illusion? Never, till we 
are confuted in the course of reasoning which persuades us that 
the invisible and immaterial is far more enduring, substantial, and 
real than all that we ever saw, or felt, or tasted, of the fleeting 
entities of the visible world. 

This theory cannot, without gross injustice, be accused of 
robbing the sacrament of its value. Is the act of stretching out 
the hands to receive the bread of life, of conveying it to the lips, 
of chewing and swallowing it, a real act? Far more real is the 
transaction that invisibly accompanies it, for, at that instant and 
by those means, the inmost soul of a faithful recipient is strength- 
ened and refreshed by the grace of God, being endowed with 
blessings which it would not otherwise obtain. Both the sacra- 
ments which were ordained by Christ to be generally observed, 
are " outward, visible " signs of transactions which actually occur 
in the kingdom of God. The second birth is as real as the 
first. At the very hour when the person is baptized in the Triune 
Name, a certain accession of spiritual force comes to him, by 
which he can overpower sin, Satan, and death, and a change is 
wrought whereby he is enabled to purify his inner nature. Should 
he improve his advantages and make some progress in cleansing 
himself from sin, he will (so to speak) presently exhaust his sup- 
ply of grace and be in need of its renewal. What shall he do ? 
What course does the child pursue who has toiled in his merry 



THE ETJCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY 309 

pastimes till bis body bas drawn to tbe full upon its stock of food 
aud craves more ? His instinct directs bim to seek nourishment. 
What tbe meal furnished by parental love is to tbe infant, that is 
the Holy Eucharist to the faithful soul, the means by which it 
obtains a fresh supply of strength. The act of taking food is as 
real and as necessary in one case as in tbe otber, for if the Chris- 
tian neglects to approach the holy table, he dies as surely as the 
hungry child who can get nothing to eat. In either instance it is 
true that man does not live by bread alone, but that God can 
sustain him without it when He sees adequate cause, and yet tbat 
under ordinary circumstances a natural law brings a slow but in- 
evitable death. It is an awful thing to enter the presence-cham- 
ber of Omnipotence and fall low on our knees with hands opened 
for the reception of blessings which Infinite Mercy alone can be- 
stow. If gratitude can touch the heart of a forgiven sinner, it 
must be at the moment when the full benefit of the Redeemer's 
passion is communicated to it. If awe can envelop the adoring 
mind, when will it do so with more certainty than during an hour 
passed in commemorating and recalling the amazing events of 
Christ's crucifixion, and in contemplating Him ascended into 
heaven and giving us the good gifts which He gained for us by 
His obedience unto death ? Realizing by faith the nearness of our 
Saviour, profoundly impressed with that sense of His divinity 
which springs from the thought of His boundless love, assisted by 
the stillness and devotion of the assembled communicants, by the 
cooperation of angels and archangels, by the significant acts of 
the officiating priest, and by the elevating tone of a noble liturgy, 
the humble believer adores his God in the Eucharist as he would 
in vain attempt to do without the aid of that sacrament. 

As time advanced the theory of Paschasius Radbert slowly 
and silently gained ground. A century and a half of comparative 
quietude suffered this discussion to be forgotten, until the monas- 
tery of Bee and the learned world in general throughout the 
West began to practice debate with weapons, which were new to 
them although they had to be cleansed from the rust of a vener- 
able age. Arabian scholars like Avicenna, having become enthu- 
siastic readers of ancient Greek philosophy, were instrumental in 
introducing it through Spain into Europe, where it speedily took 
root and nourished greatly. An occasional work or idea derived 
from the same primary source, was also borrowed by the Latins 



310 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

from Constantinople and the mediaeval Greeks. A new phi- 
losophy took possession of the "Western mind, and sought to ex- 
plain, prove, and systematize all Catholic theology. It revered 
Aristotle as its august founder, but had a lower niche at one side 
for the statue of Plato the Divine. The Stagy rite, by means of 
the efficient help afforded him by men of such colossal dimensions 
as Lanfranc and Anselm, Koscelin and William of Champeaux, 
Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter Lombard and Alexander 
of Hales, Bonaventura and Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, 
Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon, governed Spain, France, Ger- 
many, Italy, and Britain autocratically from the eleventh to the 
fifteenth centuries, and still controls no small portion of Christen- 
dom. Logic, proceeding according to the rules of Aristotle, was 
held capable of attaining infallible results. The citation of a sen- 
tence or an opinion from that philosopher carried oracular weight. 
The whole attention of the age was given up to metaphysical 
discussions which hardly had a beginning and never could come 
to any conclusion. Yet this unprofitable war of wits exercised 
the intellectual faculties, produced a more general thirst for knowl- 
edge, developed many prodigies of acuteness, vigor, and fertility, 
erected many a stupendous monument of erudition in the vast 
tomes which were evolved from restless brains, and opened the 
road for the sounder learning which was to follow. 

An irrepressible feeling of regret arises within us when recall- 
ing the narrative of the Second Eucharistic Controversy, that the 
craven-heartedness of the champion who then undertook the de- 
fense of Catholic verity robbed him of the praise which otherwise 
would have been accorded to his very decided ability and note- 
worthy breadth and liberality of thought. The courage neces- 
sary in order to confront an angry concourse does not always ac- 
company noble qualities of intellect ; but whenever there is a 
conspicuous lack of fortitude, the possession of mental vigor only 
enables a man to make himself more contemptible. Who does 
not feel that a brain as mighty as that of Galileo should have 
strengthened his heart against the terrors of the Inquisition? 
Yet had that philosopher fallen a victim to theological rage, he 
would have died in behalf of a discovery important enough to 
science, but of very little consequence as far as man's eternal in- 
terests are concerned ; and so we are disposed to urge, in excuse 
for his recantation of what he firmly believed to be astronomical 



THE EUCHABISTIC CONTROVERSY. 311 

truth, the plea that it is hardly worth while for a man to sacrifice 
himself in such a cause. Poor as such an excuse must seem to 
every one who perceives that all martyrs to truth are martyrs to 
their own moral integrity, it utterly fails us when the persecuted 
person has weakly shrunk from suffering in behalf of so vital a 
doctrine of religion as that concerning the nature of the Holy 
Communion. He who denies the faith denies the Lord who 
taught it, and shares the guilt of Peter, and especially so when his 
denial touches the truth of the Incarnation as nearly as does the 
sanctioning of a dogma which, by necessary implication, destroys 
the reality of the glorified body of the Saviour, by dividing it 
into millions of fragments to be devoured by as many mouths. 
Whether, or not, unqualified condemnation is the due meed of 
every one who swerves from truth under intimidation, most as- 
suredly nothing else can be expected by him who prefers his own 
ease and safety to the maintenance of that which God has made 
known for the sake of lost sinners, thereby seeking to rescue them 
from eternal destruction. Even an Athanasius might have failed 
to check the rushing tide, but he would at least have given the 
just cause such prestige as a glorious example could afford, and 
saved the orthodox from the shame and disgrace in which they 
were involved by the pusillanimity of the champion whom cir- 
cumstances forced to the front. 

Happy in having enjoyed the instruction of so competent and 
paternal a master as Fulbert of Chartres, and in the possession of 
leisure to indulge his fondness for the pursuit of knowledge, 
Berengarius had already acquired some distinction as head of 
the cathedral school at Tours, and as archdeacon at Angers, when 
he commenced to animadvert upon the doctrine of Radbert. As 
soon as it became known that he was opposing the views of the 
Eucharist which were daily growing in popular favor, a storm 
began to brew. The offense of Berengarius was an almost un- 
pardonable one in the eyes of his former friend, Lanfranc : it was 
that he refused to credit the conversion of bread and wine into 
the body and blood of Christ, and adhered to the reasonable view 
that the only change was a figurative one, admitting that some 
transaction occurred at the celebration by which the benefits of 
Christ's atoning death were communicated to the faithful, but 
holding that it occurred in the spiritual world only. Lanfranc 
was scarcely less than furious, and his powerful enmity caused 



312 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

matters to go hard with the archdeacon, procuring for him un- 
heard a condemnation by a Roman synod held under Leo IX. 
in 1050, and a citation to appear before a council' which was to 
meet the same year at Vercelli. Upon requesting from the king 
of France permission to obey the summons, he was seized and 
ignominiously consigned to a dungeon, and deprived of his goods 
by sequestration. Two ecclesiastics, who had the courage to appear 
as his advocates, had to be arrested in order to protect them from 
the rage of the mob. Berengarius was again condemned. Euse- 
bius Bruno, his own bishop and fast friend, and others, procured 
his release, but advised him to moderate his zeal. Finding in his 
own firm conviction assurance that his views needed only to be 
known and ably defended in order to triumph, he refrained, it is 
true, from advocating them as openly and vehemently as before, 
but clung to the hope of obtaining for them an impartial hearing 
before an assembly of bishops. He set out in this hopeful strain 
to attend a council at Paris, but prudently listened to friendly 
advice, and thereby saved himself, in all probability, from personal 
violence, for the council was not satisfied till it had condemned 
him and his adherents to death. Nothing daunted, he presented 
himself before another French synod, which was held at Tours in 
1054. On this occasion he had the good fortune to be shielded 
from his bitter opponents by the papal legate himself, who was none 
other than the redoubtable Hildebrand, prime minister of popes ; 
who became convinced that the views of Berengarius were not by 
any means as low and ultra as they had been represented. What 
exactly were the opinions of the cardinal, we cannot say. It is 
probable, however, that he did not quite coincide with the accused, 
although he was far from agreeing with Deoduin of Liege and the 
extremists on his side ; he was too fair-minded and resolute a man 
to be controlled by the cries of the vulgar, or to unite in any un- 
just condemnation. Hildebrand had influence enough to bring 
about an accommodation on the basis of a somewhat ambiguous 
formula. 

Thus far the champion has acquitted himself very creditably 
indeed, not suffering himself to be disheartened by the mere show 
of numbers, and at the same time using considerable prudence and 
moderation in advocating the doctrines which he was persuaded 
were correct. Hereafter he is to appear at less advantage, though 
the tragedy opens with his manfully repairing to Rome and invit- 



THE EUCHAMSTIC CONTMOVEMSY. 313 

ing the whole Christian world to a thorough examination of his 
doctrine. Like many another standard-bearer of truth, he did 
not know his own weakness until the fated hour revealed him to 
himself. Hildebrand, not caring to hazard what were to him 
more important interests by committing himself too entirely upon 
Berengarius's side, was unable to carry his point against the fanat- 
ical majority, who were spurred on by Cardinal Humbert. In 
1059 the latter forced upon the unfortunate advocate of the genu- 
ine Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence a formula so worded as 
to express the most carnal notions of the Lord's Supper. Return- 
ing to France, the vanquished combatant strove in vain to drown 
his remorse in a lively controversy with Lanfranc, who supported 
the popular side with remarkable acuteness and power, but with- 
out going all the lengths of Humbert and the Italian council. At 
length Berengarius beheld his protector seated on the pontifical 
throne, and perhaps hoped that he would now live unmolested. 
If he nursed any such anticipations, they were soon destroyed, for 
even Gregory VII., the fearless and utterly indomitable antagonist 
of monarchs, was not strong enough to rescue this man from the 
machinations of Cardinal Benno. Berengarius covered himself 
with the disgrace of a second recantation, and then fled from 
society, and wept over his cowardice and faithlessness during a 
period of nearly ten years, reaching from his last condemnation 
in 1079 to his death in 1088. 

Thus the doctrine of Transubstantiation triumphed, and 
marched forward with steady steps towards its final victory in 1215, 
when the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council would enthrone it 
as a dogma of the Latin Church. It could hardly have succeeded 
in enslaving men's minds so universally but for the extraordinary 
homage which was paid to the dicta of Aristotle, who attempted 
to divorce substance from phenomena in a most dangerous fashion. 
Deep thinkers are frequently puzzled in regard to the method of 
proving that an external world exists. It is often said that no man 
ever saw a stone. He sees its color, its shape, its size, but not the 
thing itself: he can feel that it is smooth, round, hard, but cannot 
feel the thing itself. The qualities of matter are all that our senses 
can be cognizant of, that subtile thing we call substance always and 
forever eluding their grasp. How color, shape, size, smoothness, 
roundness, hardness, brittleness, and elasticity could continue to 
manifest themselves after the stone itself were abstracted, we must 



314: THE CHUBGH AND THE FAITH. 

leave the scholastics to answer for themselves. Eidiculous as the 
idea of separating the properties of a body from its substance is to 
our modern understandings, it is nevertheless one possible to be 
advanced, and it was, virtually at least, taught by the Stagyrite. 
Adopting the theory made ready to their hands, the schoolmen 
elaborated the theological system of eucharistic philosophy, accord- 
ing to which it is held that while the accidents or properties of the 
bread and wine remain, the substance has all been taken away, to 
make room for the insertion of the substance of flesh and blood 
without their usual accidents. Such is the solid foundation of this 
scholastic edifice! What marvel that the doctrine of Concomi- 
tance was suffered to minister to priestly arrogance, by taking out 
of the mouths of God's children the cup of His atoning blood, on 
the plea that, since no process of pressing or pounding can drive 
all the blood out of the flesh of slaughtered bullocks, the invisible 
flesh must retain the invisible blood, and therefore the communi- 
cant who eats the consecrated wafer necessarily partakes of the 
other element, and does not need to have it separately given to him ! 
What marvel, either, that the transubstantiated elements should 
become so perfectly identified with the Lord Himself that devout 
souls approach them with that overpowering awe which is inspired 
by the presence of Deity, and kneel before them as before the Ever- 
lasting Throne itself! And what more natural than that the com- 
mon people should become oblivious of the very precept which was 
emphasized in the Institution, and instead of eating and drinking 
the blessed symbols, content themselves with gazing in breathless 
reverence upon the gorgeously arrayed celebrant, insensible the 
while to the creeping over them of a deathly faintness caused by 
lack of spiritual nourishment ! Yes ! And one needed not to be 
a prophet in order to foresee that the common sense of the laity 
would, sooner or later, rebel against such outrage, and demand 
that their parched lips should be moistened with the wine of 
Christ's providing. Innocent III. could easily obtain the sanc- 
tion of the Fourth Lateran Council to a dogma however unsound 
and pernicious, but he could not prevent the enraged Utraquists 
and Calixtines of Bohemia from storming the town-house of Prague 
with a symbolical cup at the head of their columns, nor, under the 
skillful generalship of John Ziska the Blind, from shattering three 
successive armies of the emperor Sigismund, who had basely be- 
trayed Huss and Jerome to the flames of Constance. 



CHAPTEE XVII. 

THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 

"We have already mourned over the decadence of the Church, 
but must now steel our hearts for the contemplation of some par- 
ticulars of the great corruption which almost made one branch of 
it an offense in the nostrils of all virtuous persons. Deep grief 
must stir every pious heart in dwelling upon the sad and terrible 
downfall of those who were mighty in Israel. The more thor- 
oughly we are convinced of the fact that the church of Rome was 
once the soundest member of the great corporate Church which 
Christ Himself founded, the more lamentable will sound to us the 
story of her falling away. Would that we might look back to the 
Rome of the General Councils without having our view inter- 
cepted by the shadow of great darkness which settled down so 
thick upon the Rome of the Middle Ages ! We have seen a Leo 
stemming the tide of imperial dictation, we have seen a Martin 
cheerfully sealing a good confession with his blood, and have 
hailed them as glorious defenders of the true faith. While unable 
and unwilling to withhold our admiration from the devotion, 
heroism, and genius of Hildebrand, and while we even venture to 
sympathize with him in his determination that, if it be true that 
either the church must rule the state or the state must rule the 
church, then the sword of temporal domination should be wielded 
by the hand which already, by divine apppointment and conse- 
cration, held that of ecclesiastical sovereignty, we cannot but feel 
our transports in this case greatly moderated by sad reflection 
upon the consequences which ensued, as common sense would 
have taught any thoughtful person to expect, from the establish- 
ment of the principles for which he battled. Although contend- 
ing, with zeal that was scarcely moderate, for a cause which was 
certainly wrong, Hildebrand was neither an immoral, nor an 
irreligious, nor a selfish, nor a weak man, but one of the most 



316 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

devout, virtuous, and able men that ever figured in the high places 
of the church : he, at least, brought no disgrace upon the papal 
chair. Still he was toiling to build up a power which would 
prove itself the deadliest enemy of the very church to which he 
gave his life. Absolute power can safely be conceded to no 
human being ; for, though on those rare occasions when it falls to 
the lot of great and good men, it may for a time work immense bene- 
fit ; on those other and much more frequent ones when it is attained 
by the incompetent and the vicious, it will enable vice to spread, 
like the waters of a spring freshet, over all barriers and obstructions, 
these being perhaps demolished forever. The ends which Hilde- 
brand sought to compass were vast and noble. Near to his in- 
most heart lay the desire to reform the church, and in particular 
the curia or papal court, and towards the accomplishment of this 
some of his mightiest efforts were directed. It is true that he 
aimed at the establishment of a huge ecclesiastical empire, but in 
his view and intention the whole strength and influence of the 
gold-encircled tiara were to be enlisted in the cause of true religion 
and fervent piety. There was need enough of a thorough refor- 
mation, for the history of those who successively occupied St. 
Peter's vaunted chair during the two or three centuries immedi- 
ately preceding the pontificate of Gregory is simply appalling, as 
a chronicle of human depravity. Not only was no care exercised 
in the choice of the men who were to be the chief pastors of Latin 
Christendom, but the office was openly bought and sold by a pon- 
tiff like Benedict the Ninth, who, having been elected at the age 
of twelve by free use of money, shamelessly disposed of the prize 
which he had drawn, and then seized it back two years later, in 
1047. The advantages attendant upon the possession of such un- 
limited power were basely employed for the promotion of un- 
worthy relatives, for the advancement of incompetent and untrust- 
worthy favorites, for the annoyance and humiliation of enemies, 
for the amassing of wealth, and for the furthering of private and 
un sanctified schemes. Females of loose character played as con- 
spicuous a part as the Pompadour, or the viler countess Du Barry, 
in the worst days of Versailles while Louis XV. gave himself over 
to debauchery. The abilities and self-devotion of Gregory VII. 
and Innocent III. raised the papacy, step by step, towards the 
highest pinnacle of ambition, but with what effect upon the popes 
themselves a very cursory glance at the history of the church of 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRWENTINE ERA. 317 

Rome will suffice to inform us. The doubter has only to read an 
account of the extortions practiced by those popes who, preferring 
a Gallic atmosphere and the protection of the French king to 
the hazards of a residence in Italy, where they would be coldly 
regarded as foreigners, maintained their court at Avignon, in 
Provence, and forced by all kinds of avaricious schemes and un- 
scrupulous measures from a reluctant clergy some compensation 
for the revenues which their own proper territories withheld ; or 
of the struggles between rival claimants of the Apostolic See during 
the period of the Great Schism, which followed close upon the 
termination of the "Babylonish Captivity" by the return of 
Gregory IX. supported by the powerful influence of the able nun, 
Catharine of Siena, to Rome, seventy years after Clement V. had 
left it. As time advances and the epoch of the Reformation 
draws near, matters seem to grow worse beneath the darkening 
heavens. If a brighter day arose out of that mighty convulsion, 
then was the proverb well illustrated, that the darkest hour pre- 
cedes the dawn, by the aggregation at that precise time of three 
such popes as Alexander VI., Julius II., and Leo X. About a 
century earlier John XXIII. had been deposed by the council of 
Constance on account of certain crimes alleged against him, as 
well as for other causes. The black catalogue of offenses includes, 
as set forth in formal articles, simony, extortion, adultery, incest, 
the sale of ecclesiastical offices and bulls, and poisoning. If such 
an enumeration could be eclipsed, that marvel was achieved by 
the utterly infamous Alexander, whose miserable life was acci- 
dentally, but retributively, terminated by a poisoned cup which 
he and his son, Caesar Borgia, had intended for other mouths. 
Julius substituted carnal weapons for the ones proper to spiritual 
warfare, and bent his energies towards the aggrandizement, by 
force of arms, of the throne which he had obtained through the 
basest means, not hesitating to turn against his allies whenever 
the doing so seemed to promise well for his nefarious schemes ; at 
one moment using the French against the Venetians, and then 
going over to the other side, and stirring up the maritime repub- 
lic, and the Swiss and Spaniards against Lewis XII. of France ; 
and lavishing upon the congenial pursuits of camps, battles, and 
campaigns that time and those energies which had been ostensibly 
dedicated to better things. His character corresponded with his 
course of life, so that in this chief-bishop we recognize 



318 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

and fierce cruelty worthy of such soldiers of fortune as Wallen- 
stein or Davoust. Leo X. was as much worse than these pontiffs 
as a polished, scholarly, elegant debauchee and infidel is worse 
than coarse, vulgar ruffians. In him the bad traits of the Medici 
blood predominated over the good, and caused him to abandon 
himself, for the most part, to sensual indulgence. Idle, luxurious, 
and vain, his literary attainments enabled him to jest with more 
pointedness against that fable of Christianity. "When dark shades 
are altogether used in coloring a picture, we are very apt to ques- 
tion the impartiality of the hand which paints it. "Was there no 
one man during all these centuries whose integrity and purity 
would show all the clearer for the sombre background ? Had 
there been a single pope of any prominence whose life revived the 
memory of apostolic virtue and godliness, and whose abilities en- 
abled him to stamp such characteristics, even faintly, upon the 
church, we would gladly introduce him into the grouping, for 
artistic effect, if for nothing else. Even if we wished to paint the 
picture darker than the truth warrants, this end would best be 
accomplished by resorting to just such a device of contrast. As 
it is, we are sorely tempted to throw in a dash of warmer hue, to 
surround Caraffa with a lustre which does not belong to his 
haughty and imperious character, to dwell upon the three or four 
weeks during which death spared in Marcellus II. a genuine re- 
former, to forget the trickery, dissimulation, and excessive pride 
which tarnished the glory of Sixtus V., and the heartless cruelty 
of Pius V., his predecessor ; but inexorable truth reminds us that, 
while even Hildebrand harbored passions scarcely consistent with 
the Christian profession, the vast mass of the Roman bishops were 
either utterly insignificant or hopelessly bad, not one of them 
worthy of mention among the luminaries of an earlier period, and 
some of them so utterly profligate that language could hardly ex- 
aggerate their criminality, and that the only compeers for them 
are to be found in the Neros and Domitians of elder Home. 

A miracle would have been required to preserve the lower 
orders of the ministry and the other members of the episcopal 
bench from this contagion. Small care was likely to be exercised 
in selecting the minor officials of such a debased government. 
WTien the keeper of the monkeys could be converted into a car- 
dinal by the papal nod, as was actually done under Julius III. ; 
when an unmarried pope could have six Borgias to call him 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 319 

father ; when the earthly head of the church could allow himself 
to remove his enemies by poison ; when, in short, no species of 
iniquity was an unusual, or a nocturnal, visitor at the Vatican, 
what must have been the condition of the clergy at large ? Is it 
strange that a custom should have actually prevailed in some places 
requiring every parish priest to take a concubine before he was in- 
stituted, in order to protect the chastity of the wives and daugh- 
ters of the community? Is it strange that public men, digni- 
taries of the church, and all persons, indeed, should have feared 
to taste the eucharistic cup, where it had not yet been taken away 
from the multitude ? Is it surprising that extortionate measures 
were employed to replenish their own coffers by a clergy who 
were continually subject to being plundered by the papal tax- 
gatherers ? The provincial vices may be only faint copies of the 
more brilliant crimes of the capital; but when debauchery and 
avarice reign supreme at the source of power, the most distant 
points will not escape infection. 

And, indeed, what could even the most upright and zealous 
ministry have accomplished when loaded down with such dogmas 
as the Latin clergy had to carry towards the dawn of the Refor- 
mation ? Should we choose to embark upon a philosophical 
inquiry as to what are the chief restraints upon the sinner, we 
would perhaps conclude that the two considerations which check 
the believer, whenever he feels himself most powerfully drawn 
towards evil, are the fear of eternal punishment and the knowl- 
edge that this terrible fate can only be avoided by a pardon from 
a just God. Love maybe a more powerful emotion than fear, 
but its force is one rather of reclamation than of restraint. After 
the transgression has been committed and the enticement to its 
commission faded away, then sorrow for having offended a com- 
passionate and long-suffering God and our crucified Lord takes 
possession of a heart awakened to love, but the overpowering vio- 
lence of a momentary and passionate impulse easily obliterates, for 
the time, every trace of affection, and would leave us to fall help- 
less victims to the temptation, were it not for the terrible warning 
which fear whispers in our ears. And as for fear's having power 
over us, to doubt it would seem little short of absurd, unless we 
could expunge from history the pages which tell how the bravest 
troops have cast away the record of perhaps ten campaigns, along 
with their arms and accoutrements, as they have fled with blanched 



320 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

faces from some peculiarly trying situation. If this be true of 
advanced Christians, how much more true must it be of those 
vast multitudes who seem to hover on the borders of righteous- 
ness, just contriving to keep themselves from the clutches of the 
Evil One ! Now, the great dread which is inspired by the men- 
tion of Hell arises from the utter hopelessness of his lot who is to 
be cast into its blazing pit. Let it be once understood that the 
iires of Gehenna are to torture us for a time only, and we will at 
once become forgetful of their heat in the forethought of our es- 
cape from them. In the next place, begin by limiting the time, and 
go on to provide methods of easily escaping even this graduated 
punishment by doing penance or paying a certain amount of 
money, without in any way reforming the life, or submitting the 
rebellious will, or cleansing the wicked heart, and you surely have 
made long strides towards the sinner's emancipation from all fear 
of the hereafter. If any step remains to be made, that, too, will 
have been taken as soon as we shall have removed our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ from the position which He alone can fill, of 
Mediator between an offended God and His alienated subjects, 
and shall have substituted for Him, in the grandeur of His per- 
fect humanity and the glory of His con substantial divinity, poor, 
weak, sinful men and women like ourselves, who may be thought 
susceptible to influences of merely human pity which could not 
affect the Perfect One. All these successive advances were made 
by the Latin Church. For Hell, she devised a purgatory ; to the 
doctrine of purgatory, she added those of penance and indulgences ; 
and to these, again, that of the worship of the Virgin and the 
Saints. What had a member of the church to fear? If he took 
the very small pains necessary to avoid excommunication, he 
could only be sent to purgatory, at the worst ; if he had left any 
money behind him, the church would see to it that his heirs 
should not be slow in buying his release from its mitigated 
pains; and all this could be accomplished, in almost open oppo- 
sition to God, through the all-powerful intercession of those 
saints whom he could so easily propitiate with votive offerings 
such as formerly were laid on the shrines of heathen gods. Did 
it not almost seem as though Rome had entered into a conspiracy 
to overthrow religion ? "What more could she have done? She 
had turned loose upon the community a set of disorderly, drunken, 
profligate idlers, and put into their hands the tremendous engine 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTHTE ERA. 321 

of the confessional, and filled their mouths with a doctrine that 
might have subverted the most approved piety ; and she had re- 
moved from the people one-half, at least, of the spiritual nourish- 
ment necessary to support in vigorous activity the life implanted 
at the font. Such is the indictment which we present against the 
Western Church. 

That we have drawn it up with a very weak and partial pen, will 
be charged upon ns by those who are at all familiar with the facts 
of the case. Rome herself cannot deny a single allegation we have 
brought forward. If she made the attempt, her own doctors, and 
synods, and popes would give her the lie direct. Her divines de- 
manded a reformation vociferously : Constance, Basle, Trent were 
the scenesvof three tremendous efforts to reform the church in its 
head and members ; and popes themselves were frequently com- 
pelled to admit the propriety, the necessity, of taking some active 
measures looking in that direction. "What she has so repeatedly, 
in so many different ways, and with such frankness, admitted 
openly before mankind, she cannot now deny without infringing 
the great law of estoppel, and bringing npon herself the well- 
merited contempt of all honest persons. 

As our object is truth, and not defamation, we will do well to con- 
sider whether no excuses or palliations can be pleaded in behalf of 
the prisoner who stands at the bar of our judgment. In all honesty, 
let us confess that there is much which ought to be taken in mitiga- 
tion of the condemnation we cannot avoid pronouncing. Even 
under the assumption that the crimes of the Church of Rome were 
as black as the most fiery imagination can paint them, fairness for- 
bids our laying them unqualifiedly on the sturdy back of that an- 
cient corporation. The fact seems to be that Christianity had 
deteriorated, sadly, in the mass. That close interdependence of 
religion and civilization which is natural and inevitable had been 
enlarged and strengthened by that unfortunate act of distrust in 
God, of which the Church was guilty when it rose to the shining 
bait which Constantine cast upon the water. The religious capa- 
bility of any man, or any collection of men, must depend upon the 
intellectual and moral status of the individual or community, and 
that, again, must oscillate with the advancement or retrogression 
of civilization. Where a people is hardy, brave, abstemious, and 
cultured, the average of piety must be much higher than it would 
be under the contrary condition of affairs. When a nation has 



322 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

allowed itself to become lazy, luxurious, ignorant, and profligate, 
generations must elapse before it can be brought up to a high- 
toned morality. Had the Christian Church only possessed pru- 
dence, foresight, faith, independence, self-control, and courage 
enough to remain in the position in which Christ had placed her, 
she might have preserved her own people from degenerating with 
the subjects of the Empire. By instilling the divine precepts of 
revelation, and hedging in her kingdom with those rules and or- 
dinances which she might have found it expedient to enact, she 
might have constituted herself the guardian of learning, philoso- 
phy, refinement, and even of material comfort and mechanical 
skill. In so doing she need not have descended from her own 
sphere, since her commission extends to the salvation of the race, 
not only from the pangs of eternal torment, but also from all 
the injurious consequences of sin, among which may be enumer- 
ated its tendencies towards indolence, self-indulgence, and vice. 
But when she gave her hand to an imperial suitor, she subjected 
herself to all the vicissitudes of his household. From the day of 
their union it was certain that the fall of the empire would terri- 
bly shake, if it did not utterly destroy, the visible kingdom of 
heaven. Her influence was insufficient to stay the downward 
progress of the secular power, which was already dying of inner 
rottenness. Effeminacy and foreign invasion, in immersing the 
empire of the Caesars in a vast ocean of ignorance, darkness, and 
utter ruin, enveloped the kingdom of Christ in the fogs of super- 
stition, doctrinal error, and immoral living. It is not, therefore, 
just to charge the church of Rome with the necessary conse- 
quences of a fault in which the whole Church participated. The 
age itself was a corrupt one : the Latin church shared in this cor- 
ruption, partly, it is true, from the inherent necessities of the case, 
but chiefly by reason of the unholy alliance by which the Catholic 
Church had needlessly involved herself in the catastrophes of the 
State. 

If it is unfair to throw the entire blame for the demoralization 
of society upon the Latin church, it cannot be proper to depict 
that sad condition as being more complete and universal than it 
really was. In reading ordinary Protestant accounts of that pe- 
riod one feels as though truth and righteousness had perished out 
of the land, and it had been entirely given over to riot and all 
iniquity, and left to wallow in the slough of abandoned impiety. 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 323 

If any vestiges of sanctity remained, we are instructed to search 
for them exclusively among the inhabitants of certain favored 
Alpine valleys and perhaps of a few other districts in the south 
of France, who rejoiced in the names of Waldenses and Albigen- 
ses, and enjoyed the double distinction of having been denounced 
as heretics and exposed to the horrors of crusade and inquisition. 
But who does not know the proneness of man to exaggerate? 
Were there, indeed, no faithful parish priests who tended their 
flocks with assiduity, and guarded them with unwavering dili- 
gence, where the blue waves of the Bay of Biscay and the rugged 
fastnesses of the Asturian Mountains protected them from too 
close intercourse with a decaying civilization, where the impreg- 
nable fortresses of the Rhine shielded an industrious peasantry 
from foreign exactions, where the sturdy Saxon nourished in his 
sea-girt isle those sentiments which gradually embodied them- 
selves in that charter of freedom, the English Common Law, or 
even in the very heart of the papal domain itself? The idea is 
monstrous ! Was Luther the only man of his generation who 
sought the Lord with all his heart ? Eo more than he was the 
first one to raise an outcry against the prevailing immorality. 
WyclifTe had preceded him by a century and a half, and been 
quite as outspoken and fearless as he, Huss and Jerome had fol- 
lowed the Englishman, Tauler and Puysbroek had trodden the 
same rough and dangerous path, Savonarola had hurled his fiery 
eloquence at the " Nero of the Pontiffs," Lord Cobham had suf- 
fered on the gibbet, and yet we are to think that the Latin church 
was wholly corrupt ! John Gerson, the foremost theologian of 
his age and, at one time, chancellor of the Sorbonne at Paris, to- 
gether with another chancellor of the same university, Peter 
D'Ailly, boldly advocated reform, though retaining unimpaired 
their fellowship with the church ; pope after pope proclaimed the 
necessity of restoring ecclesiastical affairs to greater purity ; coun- 
cil after council was held at the demand of irrepressible public 
sentiment in order to bring about that desirable consummation ; 
and yet we are prohibited from believing that the entire Western 
Communion was not thoroughly, totally, and irreclaimably cor- 
rupt ! Why ! the very success of Luther and Calvin is proof posi- 
tive that the age was ripe for a change, and therefore that the 
mass of the church had been working towards a reformation for 
at least a century or two previously. Or shall we credit the pre- 



324 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

posterous notion that the wonderful preaching of two or three 
men aroused all Europe from a dream of wickedness, and drew 
hundreds of thousands, almost upon the instant, into the paths of 
virtue and correct doctrine ? Not a few cardinals, — men of note, 
like Caraffa, Contarini, Morone, and Reginald Pole, — belonged to 
a confraternity organized at Rome itself under the name of the 
" Oratory of Divine JLove," and strove, by intercourse with each 
other, to promote piety and devotion among themselves and, less 
directly, among others. Could this have occurred in a Christen- 
dom that was as far gone from holiness as some would paint it ? 
Could the majority of eighteen thousand ecclesiastics demand re- 
form in head and members, if the church were wholly corrupt ? 
Yet that number was assembled at the great reforming synod of 
Constance, which sat from 1414 to 1418. Bad as pope, and clergy, 
and people may have been, erroneous and pernicious as may have 
been many of the dogmas commonly taught, some virtue and 
some piety must have survived, down to the era of Luther, in that 
vast and powerful section of the church which acknowledged al- 
legiance to the patriarch of Old Rome. 

Let our glance now be turned upon the doctrinal condition of 
the Latin church, with a view to ascertaining whether the preva- 
lent errors were merely of a floating and adventitious nature, or 
whether they were ingrained in the system of the church so as to 
be part and parcel of its own substance. That the departures 
from the purity of the faith were flagrant, and injurious, and 
numerous has already been admitted with sufficient minuteness 
and distinctness. Some of these errors, such as those of Transub- 
stantiation and Purgatory, had already received the sanction of 
councils and been openly taught as the Catholic faith. This 
surely was sad enough, and yet there existed no insurmountable 
barrier between membership in the Roman church and adherence 
to the primitive faith, all that was exacted of a catechumen in 
order that he should be admitted to holy baptism being, in respect 
of faith, the profession of the ancient creeds. No man was 
compelled to believe in the physical transformation of the ele- 
ments, in the theory of concomitance, in the existence of a purga- 
tive fire, in the propriety of worshiping the Virgin or the saints, 
or in the possibility of being more than sufficiently righteous. It 
might expose him to much discomfort and even to some degree of 
danger, if his conscience should oblige him to oppose these errors 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTWE ERA. 325 

openly, but be migbt reject tbem bimself and still honestly retain 
bis standing in the Romish communion. After tbe Tridentine 
period tbis became impossible, but down to tbat date tbe case was 
precisely as stated above. 

What was tbe effect upon tbe status of tbe Latin Churcb of 
tbese erroneous teachings and of vicious practices? Having care- 
fully traced tbe lineage of tbe "Western Cburcb to tbe time of ber 
separation from tbe Eastern, and for some centuries later, we may 
perhaps be justified in putting the question, When did she cease 
to be a living branch of the one great, divinely-founded corpora- 
tion-ecclesiastical ? After preserving ber identity so long, bow 
did she come to lose it? Did the Fourth Lateran Council stab 
her fatally with tbe dagger of tran substantiation, or tbe Council 
of Florence with a formal definition of purgatory ? "Will some one 
inform us just how much error in matters of the faith is required 
to extinguish the ecclesiastical candle? While our friends are 
engaged in the quest of tbe amount, we will hazard the affirmation 
that as long as the Apostles' Creed is retained and used as the 
baptismal formula, no amount of doctrinal aberration, however 
excessive, will cause a church, which administers the sacrament of 
new-birtb in tbe name of tbe Trinity and by a valid ministry, to 
cease being a churcb and become a mere voluntary, man-made 
society. "When a corporation has once been organized under a 
charter, tbat charter continues in force till it has expired by natu- 
ral or express limitation, been voluntarily surrendered by tbe sur- 
viving members, or revoked by tbe authority which granted it. 
Inasmuch as the Latin Church has never surrendered ber charter, 
or bad it revoked by Christ, it only remains for us to inquire 
whether there are any limitations, either implied or expressed, in 
the wording of the document. None such appear on tbe surface 
other than those included in the conditions tbat she must retain a 
ministry whose commission proceeds from Christ Himself, and 
that this ministry must baptize with water in the name of the 
Trinity ; conditions which Rome has always sedulously fulfilled. 
If absolute correctness of belief is requisite for sonship in the 
family of God, then no man ever yet belonged to that family. If 
a churcb perishes the moment it swerves from the straight line, few 
have prolonged their existence many decades. The Scriptures, 
and particularly the Book of Revelation, clearly imply tbat a 
cburcb can err greatly both in faith and practice, and still be a 



326 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

church. One might about as properly argue that a man loses his 
identity when he catches the small-pox, as insist that a church loses 
its identity by becoming corrupt. Peter continued to be Peter 
through the threefold denial and the ensuing repentance : so the 
seven Asiatic churches were still acknowledged to be churches 
while St. John was being bidden to reprove them for unfaithful- 
ness. There is also abundant language in the Apocalypse which 
indicates that the mystical Babylon was to be an organization 
which, though apostate, would nevertheless be a real church. A 
church is one thing, a society another : nothing imaginable can 
convert a mere human society into the Church which Christ built 
upon the Rock ; and on the other hand, incalculable force is re- 
quired to wrench from its foundation an edifice which the hand 
of the Master has planted on the granite. Indisputably the Ro- 
man church was so planted, and we may rest assured that she is a 
veritable church to this very day. Does it seem a question of no 
consequence whether she is so, or not ? Men are very impatient, 
at present, of all argumentation intended to show that an organi- 
zation, which is extremely corrupt, still retains its corporate 
identity. This state of mind is excusable enough. When a man 
lies disfigured, polluted, dying with some nauseous disease, the 
ordinary spectator listens with feeble attention to the praise of his 
noble qualities and unusual abilities. What difference can it 
make that through his veins flows the pure blood of the highest 
ancestry, that blood being poisoned with the deadly fever virus ? 
Better and happier is the dullest boor whose cheek wears the hue 
of health than a Newton or a Bacon whose brain is filled with the 
wild fancies of delirium. But let us suppose that our patient 
recovers, that the enfeebled mind regains its tone. What then ? 
Is the peasant still as valuable to society as the sage ? The vast 
distance which separates the one class from the other cannot be 
obliterated. The uncultivated mind may be greatly improved by 
careful education, but the lack of mental power can be supplied by no 
imaginable means short of a new creation. The sick man may not 
betray his brilliant endowments to a casual observer, and certainly 
derives small advantage from them himself while they are rendered 
nugatory by disease : nevertheless he has fallen heir to a great 
inheritance, and if he can once escape from beneath the cloud, 
will be at liberty to enjoy it, and to lavish his wealth of thought 
and imagination upon the enraptured world. Sons of men become 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIDENTINE ERA. 327 

the sons of God, with titles to the riches of eternity, by being bap- 
tized into His Church : they may rebel against Him, and tempo- 
rarily forfeit their titles ; but they remain His children notwith- 
standing, and do not fall back into the condition from which 
baptismal new-birth raised them. The children of wrath can 
strive with any amount of diligence and perseverance to serve 
their Creator, but remain aliens to His kingdom and family until 
they have been born again of water and of the Spirit in the font 
of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. A number of 
men may band together in order to accomplish certain purposes ; 
but until the society has been recognized by the state in which it 
exists, it possesses none of the rights and privileges of a corporate 
body, cannot hold land, sue or be sued, nor enter into contracts 
or agreements. Millions of earnest believers may organize them- 
selves into a religious society, but that society has no status in the 
spiritual world till it has been openly chartered by the Almighty 
Ruler, no matter how good its members may be, how sound its 
constitution, or how pure its faith; while, on the contrary, a 
regularly chartered church remains a church through error, con- 
fusion, and vice, at least until its very foundations are torn up. 

While the great bosom of Latin Christendom was heaving with 
the violent emotions which attended upon its struggles after re- 
form, Rome herself was compelled to recognize the need of im- 
provement. After several of those sections which remained loyal 
to her had held provincial synods which attempted to move in 
that direction ; after the Gallicans had met at Paris in 1528, and 
Hermann of Cologne had assembled a reformatory council in 1536 ; 
she perceived the necessity of taking some steps herself for the 
confirming of her own children's minds. In 1545 began the almost 
interminable sessions of that great council which hardened into 
permanent dogmas so many viscid opinions that might otherwise 
have been, in course of time and by the providence of God, drained 
off into the abyss from which they had been vomited. The Refor- 
mation obliging the Romish Church to move, there were only two 
directions in which she could go ; and as she would not follow 
the Reformers in their advance towards virtue, and piety, and 
truth, she could only rush still deeper into immorality, impiety, 
and error. When this so-called general council of Trent, packed 
with creatures of the papacy, had dragged its slow length through 
eighteen years, its members turned their faces homewards, having 



328 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH, 

embodied most of the leading errors of Romish teaching in author- 
itative dogmatic statements, which were soon to receive the official 
sanction of a papal bull. Before the Creed of Pius IV. had been 
issued and made binding upon the consciences of the faithful, there 
was a possibility of remaining within the Romish Communion and 
jet rejecting all tenets contrary to the primitive faith ; but that 
unfortunate document, by imposing as terms of admission twelve 
articles which involved the acceptance of the errors of purgatory, 
invocation of saints, indulgences, transubstantiation, and other 
false doctrines, shut the door of the Romish Church upon all 
such as should be unable to reconcile these with the Scriptures 
and the testimony of antiquity. From the year 1564: onwards 
the status of the Church of Rome has been materially changed, on 
account of the enforcement of the new Creed. It is not fair to judge 
of her at the era of the Reformation by what she has become since 
through the counter-reformation, which gradually converted into 
her very substance what had previously clung, as extraneous mat- 
ter, to her skirts. 

That inextinguishable hatred should reign between Catholics 
and Protestants is more natural than commendable. Hereditary 
enmity is very apt to disregard the metes and boundaries of rea- 
sonableness, moderation, and Christian charity. Time has been 
when a man's piety was measured by the intensity of his hostility 
to Rome, and the volubility with which he was accustomed to de- 
nounce every practice, good, bad, or indifferent, of that church: 
then there was no sin which could not be atoned for by unsparing 
denunciation of the "Babylonish Harlot;" hatred, not charity, 
being allowed to hide a multitude of transgressions. Color might 
be found even at this day for the opinion that, in some quarters, the 
same gauge is still used. Now, there is nothing more impetuous 
and thoughtless than rage, and of all species of animosity the 
most violent and uncontrollable is that kind which busies itself 
about religious matters. The mutual dislike of Catholics and Prot- 
estants is the outgrowth of a prolonged and very bitter struggle. 
First came the religious war of Germany, which set brethren face to 
face on many a bloody field before Maurice, going over to the side 
of the Reformers, chased Charles V. across the Tyrolese mountains 
and wrested the Peace of Passau from Ferdinand. The Protestant 
Netherlands, after groaning for years under the tyranny of Car- 
dinal Granvella, and the still heavier oppression of that apt and 



THE LATIN CHURCH TO THE TRIBENTINE ERA. 329 

able tool of a bigoted prince, tlie duke of Alva, after seeing their 
noblest citizens die the ignominious deaths assigned to Egmont 
and Horn, after enduring as long as they could all sorts of civil 
exactions combined with the barbarities of the Inquisition, at last 
formed the alliance of Ghent under the influence of William the 
Silent, and then entered upon a desperate war with their Spanish 
sovereign. What horrors fell upon that devoted land during its 
heroic effort to free itself from foreign oppression, the heart shud- 
ders at recalling. Towns sacked as only the brutal and licentious 
soldiery of a despot such as Philip II. could sack them, cruelties 
perpetrated such as it required the education of the Auto-da-fe to 
inflict, a whole country submerged by the piercing of the dykes, 
the assassin-hand of a religious fanatic slaying the prince of 
Orange in the royal banquet-hall of Delft at the instigation of 
priests ; these things left their impress behind them. When shall 
the Huguenots of France forget the jubilee ordered by the pope 
on receiving the news of that horrible massacre which laid low in 
death the gray-haired Coligny and twenty-flve thousand, at least, 
of his brethren, in the brief space of three days ? The transactions 
of that awful night, when Charles IX. amused himself by firing 
upon the Calvinists, have not only coupled the name of St. Bar- 
tholomew and the year 1572 with the blackest infamy, but were 
sufficient to load any cause with execrations. In order that the 
flame of hatred might not die out, the duke of Guise and the 
Holy League were careful to keep France embroiled with its best 
citizens in a contest which either smouldered on, or blazed fiercely 
out, until La Rochelle had at last submitted, and five hundred 
thousand exiles carried the memory of their woes into other 
climes. Even England was not suffered to repose quietly in the 
environment of her four seas. The insult of Philip's attempt to 
subjugate her might be forgiven in consideration of the total fail- 
ure which made the " Invincible Armada" a standing jest in 
history, but the intrigues of the Jesuits and the Gunpowder Plot 
are not so easily to be condoned. The Thirty -years' War was 
enough by itself to have left sores that would rankle for centuries. 
The Catholics must, in any event, have learned to hate more utterly 
the cause which drew down upon them an ice-floe from the ISTorth 
just when their generals had brought the Protestant Estates to 
their feet, the cause which inundated Germany with the pious 
hosts of the heroic Gustavus Adolphus, which encouraged the 



330 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Chancellor, Axel Oxenstiern, to continue the struggle after that 
chivalrous monarch had paid the penalty of his daring, which gave 
strength to the arms of Baner, Bernhardt of Weimar, Torstenson, 
Wrangel, Turenne, and the able leaders who contributed their 
skill, bravery, and devotion towards the final triumph attained by 
the Protestant allies in the Peace of "Westphalia ; and these, on the 
other hand, must have experienced a growing detestation of a re- 
ligion and its adherents which seemed to countenance the ruthless, 
unscrupulous, senseless pillaging and cruelty of Tilly and Wallen- 
stein, and gave Germany over to a desolating warfare which de- 
populated, as well as devastated, it during an entire generation. 

As long as the terror of Pome affrighted the nations, there 
was considerable excuse for indulging in feelings towards her 
which savored of vindictiveness. Shall we still confess to enter- 
taining such dread of her collapsed power ? Shall we nurse an 
enmity more bitter than that which was stirred up between Eng- 
land and France by Cressy, Poictiers, Agincourt, and the burning 
at the stake of the saviour-maid ? Or shall we not cherish more 
Christian sentiments, and strive to quench the unappeasable strife? 
Let us, at least, be just, if not generous. Let us exclude from our 
hearts that blindness of prejudice which sees nothing whatever of 
good in an enemy. Let us bury, as far as prudence will permit, 
the recollections of past persecutions and fights. Pome is not to 
be won by fierce denunciations, nor will the interests of true 
religion be subserved by painting a foe blacker than the truth 
warrants. Bad as that church may be, perverted as may be her 
moral sense, purple as may be her hands with the blood of the 
saints, polluted as may be her lips by the kissing of idol shrines, 
is there not within her still, even down to this late day, even now 
that the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of Papal In- 
fallibility have become defide, "the promise and the potency" of 
something better in the future? With her magnificent organi- 
zation what a church would she not be, could she only be purged 
from her errors and vices, and brought back to a veritable Catho- 
licity ! 



CHAPTEK XVIII. 

THE CONTINENTAL KEFOEMATION. 

Ltjthee was not so much more successful than the numerous 
reformers who had preceded him, on account of any deep-laid plot, 
which he had deliberately undertaken to execute, and in the ac- 
complishment of which he expended the energies of an unchange- 
able will ; but because circumstances forced upon him the leader- 
ship in a great movement for which the age was ripe. Endowed 
by inheritance with a robust and active nature, firm in his con- 
victions, and resolute in maintaining them, he was marked by 
destiny as the man in Europe whose huge hand should shiver the 
fetters which shackled the members of Christ. He did not assail 
Rome ; but she turned her engines of war upon him, as he stood 
among his own sheep, watching over them while they fed. A 
weak man would have crouched before the storm, or rushed to 
meet it half-way : Luther remained at his post, and blenched not 
when the pitiless hail burst upon him most furiously. Only while 
his friends held him captive in the fortress of the "Wartburg, did 
he even seem to avoid danger. "With equal fearlessness did he 
burn the papal bull at Wittenberg and confront his enemies in 
the diet of Worms. To withhold from him the praise of honesty, 
high ability, dauntless courage, and unusual self-devotion were 
grossly unfair ; to pretend that he was actuated by low motives, 
such as those of obstinacy, pride, and sensuality, were a libel 
against human nature. At once a scholar, a patriot, and a Chris- 
tian, the friar of Erfurt is, and deserves to be, the foremost figure 
of an age distinguished by such names as Charles Y., Francis I., 
Henry YIIL, and Cardinal Wolsey. His faults were those which 
seem almost inseparable from the vocation to which he was called, 
and may be summed up in the allegation that he was an extremist. 
Perhaps had he been anything else he would have failed, for those 
only appear able to contend successfully with the force of long- 



332 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

established custom whose convictions possess such overwhelming 
strength that they themselves are swept helpless along with the 
rushing tide. 

Yet the question before us is not as to Luther's honesty, 
ability, or provocations. However much we may sympathize 
with him in his noble struggles to free a groaning and suffering 
people from spiritual tyranny, or value the good results which did 
flow from his heroic perseverance ; however difficult it may be to 
discover any way by which he could have escaped from the dire 
calamity of an entire breach with the Church Catholic ; however 
proud we may be of his victory over a hierarchy which was on 
the point of riveting upon the limbs of prostrate Christendom the 
chains of perpetual slavery ; we must nevertheless perceive that 
an entirely different matter from any of these claims our atten- 
tion ; which is simply this, Was the sect or denomination which 
Luther founded a genuine Church ? This is a pure question of 
fact, with which sentimentality has nothing to do. If the Lu- 
theran organization, when perfected, was a branch of that corpora- 
tion which Christ chartered, then was it a real church ; but if not, 
— if it was a mere society created by man's will, — then, no matter 
what excuse its members and founders may have had for breaking 
away from the communion of saints, no matter how admirable 
may have been its platform of belief, its laws and regulations, 
and its mode of worship, no matter how pious and earnest may 
have been the children to whom it gave birth, it was not part and 
parcel of the Church of Christ. The hot-headed partisan never 
listens to an argument concerning aught upon which he has 
thoroughly made up his own mind, but customarily takes refuge be- 
hind abusive epithets. The philosopher, on the contrary, having 
discovered that he is quite capable of arriving at wrong conclu- 
sions upon almost any subject, and that his most cherished 
opinions have often been shattered under a well-directed blow as 
completely as the Prince Rupert's drop is said to be, holds himself 
ready to examine anew almost any topic, when courteously invited 
to do so by a reasoner who merits attention. 

The inquiry which is now forcing itself upon us being so ex- 
tremely distasteful, let us, for a moment, turn aside from it, and 
look with careful eye upon the doctrinal position of the great 
German reformer, not with a view to discovering whether it 
varied in many particulars from the faith of the undivided 



THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION. 333 

church, but rather to determining whether its fundamental prin- 
ciple be not one fatal to sound doctrine aud opposed to all cer- 
tainty of hope. The Latin Church had laid, for many centuries, 
too much stress upon the idea of paternity in government, seek- 
ing to keep her children in perpetual pupilage, forbidding to them 
the free use of the Bible and requiring them to take the law alto- 
gether, with abject submissiveness, from the mouth of the priest- 
hood. This, of course, was a great overstraining of her authority. 
Did she desire to make babes of grown men ? Luther was far too 
much of a man to submit to any arbitrary edicts which would 
drive from its proper throne in his mind that Understanding 
which is the responsible guide of every one's actions. He asserted 
the dignity of his manhood ; but forgot to break off at the right 
point. In rebelling against tyranny, he lost sight of rightful au- 
thority. His teaching hands over to each individual the entire 
right of forming his own judgment upon any religious topic, with- 
out regard to the opinions of divines, the solemn decrees of coun- 
cils, or the unanimous testimony of Christians. Church authority 
over the human mind was theoretically reduced to nothing. 
However ignorant and stupid, however vicious and depraved, 
each man was competent to decide the knottiest questions in the 
science of theology. No knowledge of letters, no aquaintance 
with geography, history, or languages, no experience in the pur- 
suit of virtue, nor familiarity with holy thoughts was at all requi- 
site in order to expound dogmatic teaching, apply prophecy, or 
remove apparent inconsistency. And as for hearkening to the 
Spirit of God speaking through the corporate church, or even re- 
lying upon the witness borne by the many independent provincial 
churches to the faith as once delivered to them, those were ex- 
ploded notions of mediaeval Romanism not worthy any longer of 
so much as a sober thought. Is there, then, no medium between 
slavish subjection and unbridled license ? Did these Reformers 
indeed perceive how radical was the change that had been intro- 
duced ? Surely, they could not have realized that it was cutting 
away the very ground from under their feet, by removing all pos- 
sibility of proving the inspiration of the Bible. Strange result of 
an effort to loose the four angels from the chains which held them 
bound on the banks of the Euphrates ! It is honestly intended to 
restore the sacred volume to its just place in the veneration of 
Christian people ; and the well-meant attempt ends in reducing 



334 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

that book to the status of an ordinary production of literary skill. 
Nor did the new movement conduce to reverent handling of the 
Scriptures ; unless it be more seemly arbitrarily to eject the epistle 
of St. James as being an " epistle of straw," — because it might be 
supposed to contain a different doctrine of justification from that 
which had been put into the mouth of St. Paul, — than to add cer- 
tain books to the canon without due warrant. When Carlstadt 
and others insisted on carrying the right of private judgment 
further than was pleasing to his more chastened soul, Luther had 
an opportunity of discovering the true nature of his theory, and 
perhaps bethought him, when contemplating the wild aberrations 
of the fanatics, that a man is likely to reap what he sows. The 
Lutherans themselves may never have run into any extreme lati- 
tudinarianism or eccentricities of belief; but ought not to use that 
fact as a conclusive reply to what we are urging, until they can 
show that the existence of the fact is not itself due to the restrain- 
ing influence of those who have adhered to that good old rule of 
Vincent of Lerins which they have thrown away. 

Returning now to the main inquiry, we are constrained to con- 
fess that we are unable, even after the most diligent search, to 
discover one single argument to support the claims of the Lutheran 
body to be a real church. Intentionally or unintentionally, the 
German Reformers did create a new society, which was not con- 
tinuous with the old in any important respect, but one which, 
while composed largely, or almost entirely, of those who had been 
members of the other, was governed by different regulations, ruled 
by officers who lacked official confirmation, and in general based, 
not upon any divine charter, but upon the unsanctioned and inde- 
pendent action of mere men. If there is any truth whatsoever in 
the theories which have already been propounded and supported 
with what seemed to us conclusive reasoning, a church without a 
bishop, if it be a church at all, cannot survive the death of those 
who have received ordination from episcopal hands before the 
separation which deprived it of apostolic superintendence. The 
Lutheran ministers, at first, had the power of baptizing and of con- 
secrating the elements, because they happened to have been regu- 
larly ordained to the priesthood within the Romish communion ; 
but all of them together could not make even so much as a deacon, 
since the charter of the church provides only for episcopal ordina- 
tion. Consequently, the clergy in the second generation were 



THE CONTINENTAL BEFOBMATION 335 

destitute of all delegated authority, and had fallen to the level of 
mere representatives of the people. A church without a ministry 
must be without the sacrament of the altar, and is in a bad enough 
case ; but that is not the worst aspect of the position. A Spanish 
provincial synod has been made to do duty for an oecumenical 
council, and even establish, against the whole current of primitive 
catholicity, the validity of lay-baptism; but there is required 
more than the authority of Elliberis to uphold a principle which 
is really fatal to the whole theory of a church. We need not in 
this matter fear to take a stand which will bring down upon us 
the storm of popular ridicule : there is a chance here for another 
Athanasius, if our age can produce one. England never gave 
birth to a clearer intellect or a sounder judgment than were pos- 
sessed by Daniel Waterland. Who would not rather be " wrong" 
with Bull or Waterland than " right" with the unthinking mass, 
especially when one considers that the " errors " of those men are 
almost sure eventually to assume the fair features of truth ? The 
arguments of Waterland, of Lawrence before him, and of Ogilby 
since, have never been satisfactorily answered. Kelsall was a 
mere child in the embrace of his gigantic antagonist. Bingham, 
of course, favored the same side, but who would think of pitting 
him against the invincible Waterland as a profound reasoner : the 
learned compiler would show to poor advantage in such a contest. 
If the palm of victory is to be torn from the grasp of Dr. Clarke's 
great adversary and conqueror, the champion has yet to enter the 
lists. Until his appearance we may, without presumption, openly 
range ourselves under the ensign of a man whose opinions have 
received increments of weight with each successive generation, 
confident that, however unpopular may still be this particular one, 
the happy day will, sooner or later, come which shall behold a 
wonderful change. The burden of proof lies upon the opposite 
side, — if, at least, any success has attended our efforts in evolving a 
theory of ecclesiastical organization and continuity ; for the entire 
authority and power to convey divine grace reside, according to 
our theory, in the regularly commissioned ministry. That an 
exception exists in the case of baptism is a startling assertion, and 
one that requires to be thoroughly substantiated before we listen 
to it ; and until something more forcible can be adduced than the 
decree of an obscure synod, or the practices of churches in which 
the reins of discipline have been sadly relaxed, we feel little dis- 



336 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

posed to remodel an hypothesis which explains all other facts, from 
the era of the Apostles to our own. 

But suppose, now, it should be found that more than one 
bishop has received no baptism other than what has just been 
shown to be none at all, will not then the whole fabric of the 
Apostolic Succession be destroyed by the Invalidity of Lay-bap- 
tism ? How so ? What difference does it make to any one but 
himself whether any bishop has been baptized ? This is a ques- 
tion of authorization, and if God authorizes a person to act for 
Him, the validity of his acts is not at all affected by the personal 
state or condition of the man himself. It may be ill-advised to 
appoint officers over a society who are not members of it, but that 
certainly can be done. Should the discovery be made that the 
United States minister at the court of the Czar is not a citizen of 
the Republic, that irregularity would not shake the validity of his 
representative acts within the just scope of his powers. Would 
the Supreme Court reverse, a decision because it had been rendered 
by a Chief-justice who was an alien ? Although the Constitution 
especially provides that the President shall be a natural-born 
citizen, even in such a case of plain ineligibility the judges would 
probably hesitate to pronounce all the executive acts of a whole 
administration overturned by the unfortunate circumstance that 
the individual, who had been formally and solemnly recognized, 
who had duly taken the oath of office and held the position for the 
entire term undisputed, was born, say, in Cuba ! Yery excellent 
reading, in this connection, would be the general law of Agency. 
In short, any human being who has been duly appointed, or 
whose appointment has been explicitly recognized, by the Al- 
mighty, is qualified to act for Him, and his acts will be effica- 
cious ; whereas none other is so qualified, nor will his acts hold. 
Saul was king of Israel, Balaam was a prophet of God, Caiaphas 
was high-priest, Judas was an apostle ; each of them, irrespective 
of unrighteousness, because he had been duly authorized as God's 
a^ent in the duties of his office. Whether ever ordained to the 
priesthood, or not, whether ever made a deacon, or not, whether a 
communicant, or not, whether confirmed, or not, though even un- 
baptized, and even though the most wretched of all criminals, if 
a man has been consecrated bishop by a bishop in the true suc- 
cession, bishop he is, and bishop he will remain till he dies ; and 
his official acts will not be nullified by the misfortune of his 



THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION 337 

having been himself an alien from the commonwealth of the true 
Israel. 

We are aware that the title of Churches was commonly con- 
ceded to both the Lutheran and the Calvinistic bodies by English 
churchmen of the time of Hooker the Judicious, and regret the 
necessity of differing from men for whom we have such deep ven- 
eration, and to whom we owe such a debt of gratitude for having 
transmitted to us the privileges we enjoy in the fellowship of the 
Catholic Church ; but do not feel ourselves in any way precluded, 
by modesty or deference, from calling in question the correctness 
of the views they formed upon such a qucestio vexata, in the heat 
of a terrible struggle. The English Reformers were great and 
good men, but, unless they had been infallible, could not at once 
and completely have emancipated themselves from the bondage 
under which the mind of Christian England had so long writhed. 
The question of the Church was perhaps the one upon which they 
were the most likely to be perplexed, it being in many respects, 
as presented to them, an entirely new one, and one, also, in the 
decision of which their sympathies and prejudices would come 
most powerfully into play. We need feel no astonishment that 
they allowed their antipathy to Rome, and their dread of her great 
and threatening power, to drive them into closer relations with 
others who were contending against her usurpations, than was 
justified by the attitude in which these chose to stand towards the 
Church of Christ. At the same time we ought to be careful that 
we ourselves, with the superior advantages we enjoy, especially in 
not being exposed to dread of papal tyranny, should take broader 
and calmer views upon this momentous topic. 

If it is urged against us that the Reformed and Lutheran com- 
munions have contrived to get on very well without ministry, sac- 
raments, or settled faith, have nurtured many an orthodox theo- 
logian, have enrolled many a glorious name in the list of the saints, 
and have contributed liberally of men and money towards the 
work of carrying the glad tidings to heathen lands, we protest 
that these facts have been full before our mind, from the very first. 
Undoubtedly the Holy Ghost has been poured out upon the mem- 
bers of these societies in no stinted measure : to deny it would be 
little short of committing the unpardonable sin. Yet we do not 
see that this acknowledgment weakens us very much. We do not 
shrink from any proper test, — nor from every improper one. Had 



338 THE CHUECH AND THE FAITH. 

God made comparative piety the criterion of a church's claims, 
we would not despair of being able to designate at least some few 
characteristics of churchly piety which stamp it as being of finer 
fabric and more enduring substance than any other. Fortunately, 
however, the gracious Lord puts no such invidious task beftre us 
as that of computing and comparing the kinds and degrees of 
righteousness and holiness in rival communities or organizations ; 
but reserves that for His own omniscience, allotting to us the far 
easier one of deciding the question of historical continuity. If a 
man desires to know whether a given society is the Church 
of God, he needs not to wear out his life in futile efforts to esti- 
mate its comparative moral worth, but has only to inquire whether 
that organization derives its corporate being from the primitive 
and apostolic Church, which Christ's own hand was to build upon 
the Rock of Ages. 

The reformation which was begun in Switzerland by Ulric 
Zwingle and (Ecolampadius, carried forward, after the former had 
fallen on the field of Cappel, by Oswald Myconius and Henry 
Bullinger, and then given over to the able management, first, of 
the Frenchman, William Farel, and afterwards of his more dis- 
tinguished countryman, John Calvin, was far more radical in its 
nature than that instituted and established by the Saxon school. 
Though lacking the breadth of mind required to grasp truth in its 
many-sidedness as presented in the Catholic faith, Calvin possessed 
amazing acuteness of intellect and extraordinary talent for organ- 
izing. In mental constitution, he was almost a model Roman of 
the Empire, — logical, shrewd, persevering, and above all, system- 
atic. The religious philosophy which he devised was as devoid 
of feeling as one of Aristotle's syllogisms. The system of church 
government which he erected at Geneva, and imposed upon all 
his followers as the only Scriptural mode, was altogether the 
product of his fertile brain, never having been so much as dreamt 
of till he came upon the stage. Whatever palliation or justifi- 
cation may be found for Luther's establishment of a separate 
ecclesiastical organization, none such will avail a man who sets up 
a wholly-new device of his own, and labels it Scriptural. No 
trammels of tradition, precedent, or custom restrained the impetu- 
ous reformer of E"oyon, who deemed himself competent with his 
own hand to carve out a faith and a church better than those 
which had been so greatly prized, and ably and zealously defended, 



THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION. 339 

by Polycarp and Cyprian, Ambrose and Chrysostom, Athanasius 
and the Gregories. Calvinism may have vitality enough to insure 
its long continuance on earth in the future, but has not enough to 
enable it to trace its origin back of its founder. Should it yet 
endure ten thousand years, the stubborn fact would still confront 
it that it began to be in the sixteenth century, and then sprang, 
not from the Latin Church as a daughter from her mother, but 
from the restless intellect of a French refugee, like Minerva from 
the travailing brain of her sire. 

Alas that the highest qualities of head and heart are seldom 
bestowed upon the same individual ! Had Luther and Calvin 
only possessed the calmness and breadth of Melancthon and 
Erasmus of Rotterdam, or had these last been gifted with a little 
more of the independence and energy which characterized the two 
former, how different might have been our verdict upon the status 
of the reformed communions ! 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 

Proximity to the vast, changeful, heaving, boisterous, beauti- 
ful, mercilessly-powerful sea seems necessary in order to the de- 
velopment of the very highest powers of man. In the narrow 
strip of land which lies along the eastern border of the Mediter- 
ranean, lived and thrived the people of David, Solomon, and 
Daniel. Between the sea-washed shores of two peninsulas arose 
the two mighty nations of antiquity which extended their sway 
over three continents. Far north of Greece and Rome, in a lati- 
tude which would be scarcely habitable but for the ameliorating 
influence of the Gulf Stream, surrounded by tempestuous oceans, 
which dash furiously against cliff and bar, and enveloped much 
of the time in dense fogs, Celtiberian mariners early discovered 
twin islands, a residence in which appeared to them so desirable 
as to lure them away from the delights of their own romantic 
Spain. It was the fate of England to be frequently overrun and 
conquered. After the Anglo-Saxons had driven the original 
Britons into Wales and Cornwall, they were themselves griev- 
ously harassed by Danish freebooters, and then subjugated by the 
Normans. The earliest historical conquest of the country was by 
the Romans under the Emperor Claudius, nearly a century after 
their first invasion of the island under Julius Caesar in 55 b. c, 
but they did not attempt to resettle it except so far as to establish 
an occasional camp or colony. Two, at least, of these conquests, 
the Anglo-Saxon and the Norman, were about as thorough as 
conquests could be, expelling and exterminating the defeated 
tribes or reducing them to a miserable condition of servitude. It 
might be thought that national enmity and caste pride would have 
prevented intermarriages. Not so. Briton, Angle, Saxon, Frisian, 
Dane, Roman, Norman overcame every scruple, and sought matri- 
monial alliance, with small regard to any other considerations than 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 341 

those of interest and impulse. Thus there grew up a race hardly 
less composite and vigorous than its language, and seemingly heir 
to the best qualities of all its ancestors. The earliest inhabitants, 
indeed, are reported to have been unwarlike, and generally im- 
becile ; but quite the reverse seems to have been the truth ; and no 
such allegation, at all events, can be brought against the valorous 
German invaders, those fearless sailors and dauntless pirates, the 
Danes, nor the disciplined and gallant followers of William the 
Norman. The descendants of such races were not likely to prac- 
tice tame submission to tyrannical authority. Favored by its 
insular position, which protected it, in a measure, from the inter- 
ference of its neighbors, the nation which resulted from the com- 
mingling of so many streams was enabled to turn its almost undi- 
vided attention towards the consolidation and confirmation of its 
government and power, and to the perfecting of its institutions. 
One of the first European countries to rise from the general wreck 
of the Middle Ages an independent and organized nation, England 
soon became the home and hope of civil liberty. How much ec- 
clesiastical freedom was likewise indebted to her, let it be our 
pleasant employment to ascertain. 

The church was planted in Britain very early. In 314 the 
bishops of York and London were present at the council of Aries, 
and in 305 St. Alban was beheaded near Verulam, a martyr to the 
true faith. But the early British church was involved in the ruin 
of its adherents, being driven with them into the fastnesses of the 
western districts of the island. Woden and Thor usurped the 
deserted altars, and the greater portion of England embraced once 
more the dream of the Scandinavian mythology. The Saxon 
Heptarchy was pagan throughout, until the marriage of Ethelbert, 
king of Kent, with Bertha, a Frankish princess, introduced Luid- 
hari into the realm as her chaplain, he being a bishop of her own 
country, and likewise encouraged Gregory the Great to send the 
prior of a Benedictine monastery at Rheims, with forty of his 
brethren, as missionaries to the blue-eyed "Angels" of the North. 
The task before Augustine, when, in 597, he landed on the shores 
of Kent, was nothing less than that of converting a heathen na- 
tion, for the only effect that the Christianity of the defeated race 
had had upon the conquerors was to create within their breasts 
hatred and contempt for a religion which had suffered its votaries 
to be so completely overthrown. There was no act of intrusion 



342 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

upon the part of the monk or his master, for the Saxons had taken 
good care that the jurisdiction of the British bishops should be 
confined to their own people. Scarcely the remotest chance ex- 
isted that those prelates would ever have the slightest influence 
over the haughty and supercilious victors. No sound reason for- 
bade any foreign bishop, who might imagine that he saw a fitting 
opportunity, to enter and take full possession. The interest which 
Gregory manifested in the spiritual welfare of the fair-complexion ed 
islanders did him much credit, and the bravery and self-devotion 
displayed by the missionaries themselves ought to secure for them 
a tribute of gratitude from all loyal members of the church which 
they founded, and of which their leader became, by the consecra- 
tion of Yergilius, bishop of Aries, and the investiture of the Latin 
patriarch, first archbishop. 

Ireland had been approached by the missionaries of Kome at 
a much earlier date. Palladius, the first envoy of Ccelestine, did 
not meet with much success, but the famous St. Patrick displayed 
such zeal and capacity for the work that the natives were won 
over in flocks, so that in the fortieth year from the time of his 
coming he was enabled . to found the archi episcopal see of Ar- 
magh. This was in 472. In 565 there issued from the youthful 
church of Ireland a man hardly less distinguished than its own 
Apostle, and actuated by the same evangelizing spirit. Thirty- 
two years before the Roman monks landed on the Isle of Thanet, 
St. Columba had erected the standard of the cross among the 
northern Picts, the southern Picts having long before welcomed 
St. Nmias, a Briton, within their borders. Columba converted 
the kingdom of Bridius, the son of Meilochon, and established the 
celebrated monastery of Iona in an island ceded him for that pur- 
pose. Somewhat later, at the invitation of Oswald, king of 
Northumbria, the pious Aidan took possession of an island which 
was to rival in ecclesiastical renown that Iona he had forsaken so 
reluctantly. With great propriety was the seat of the new bishop- 
ric named Lindisfarne, or Holy Island. In planting it so that with 
one ear it listens to the deep roar of the surf, and with the other 
to the lowing and bleating of numerous herds and flocks ; with 
one eye sweeps far and wide over a boundless expanse of blue, 
and with the other describes the curve of a beautiful and culti- 
vated shore from a bold promontory which lies seven miles, or 
thereabouts, to the south as far as the mouth of the Tweed, which 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 343 

is about the same distance northward ; nature seemed to intend it 
as the abode of those whose high calling it is to stand between 
time and eternity, the living and the dead ; and well did the pious 
characters and saintly lives of many of its children justify the 
choice of it as the site of a second monastery. 

The subjection of the Saxon Heptarchy to the rule of Christ 
was neither a short, nor an easy, work. However, from the two 
centres of Canterbury and Lindisfarne emanated influences which 
little by little encroached upon the realms of the Walhalla, and at 
last drove the fierce gods of the Northmen into temporary exile. 
But the arrogant pretensions of Augustine's successors were no 
more palatable to the Irish bishops and monks than his own had 
been to the British whom he met in conference at the Oak. They 
refused to surrender their independence or sacrifice their dignity, 
and prospered under the divine blessing so greatly that they 
brought Northumbria and Mercia under the yoke of the Gospel, 
and even extended their lines so far to the southward and east- 
ward as to embrace the territory of the East Saxons. But the 
prestige of Borne soon proved too strong for them, enabling the 
Kentish princess whom Oswiu, king of Northumbria, had married, 
to carry her husband and his people over bodily to the Roman 
side, in spite of the stout resistance offered by Colman, the third 
bishop of Lindisfarne. Thereupon that dignitary, with many of 
his clergy, retired from the scene of his discomfiture into Ireland ; 
while others remained and conformed to the new rules and prac- 
tices, among whom was Tuda, who became the fourth and last of 
the Scottish incumbents of Aidan's see. His recusancy is par- 
tially excused by his having been educated in the south of Ireland, 
where different influences are said to have prevailed from those 
which were dominant in the north. About 670 Archbishop Theo- 
dore, metropolitan of all England, a Greek by birth, a Latin by 
preference, a master of learning, and an adept in organizing, the 
introducer of his native tongue, and the founder of the English 
diocesan system, a chief agent in saving England from the isola- 
tion which has proved so pernicious to Ireland, and in binding her 
to European intercourse and civilization, virtually extinguished 
the last remains of the Northern independence, not, however, so 
totally but that there lingered courage to resist unusual papal 
usurpations. Wilfrid, bishop of the Northumbrians, having dared 
to appeal to Rome against a sentence of deposition and then re- 



344 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

turn to claim his see, was seized and thrown into prison by his 
king, Egfrid. A second appeal against a second sentence, fol- 
lowed by another papal acquittal, failed to secure his reinstate- 
ment under Egfrid's successor. Thus early did the English 
Church begin to assert its rights ; for the clergy stood by their 
civil rulers in this affair. 

With the incursions of the Danes, came the necessity for re- 
newed efforts at evangelizing, for the predatory barks of the 
Vikings still sailed under the auspices of the Yalkyrias. King 
Alfred's political foresight, as well as his religious earnestness, 
rendered him very urgent with those of the defeated invaders who 
wished to reside within his territories that they should submit to 
being cleansed from the pollutions of idolatry in the waters of 
holy baptism. A treaty was effected by which Guthrum, Alfred's 
own godson, was permitted to govern his Danish countrymen 
who had settled in East Anglia. Forsaking their roving life, 
many of these greedy and merciless pirates became peaceable and 
industrious citizens, and established themselves in colonies wher- 
•ever they could obtain a footing. They gradually lost the man- 
ners of their forefathers, and exchanged the wild fables of the 
Norsemen for the sure hope of eternal life. But paganism was 
destined to make one more inroad under Sweyn the Fortunate, 
who had expelled from Denmark the clergy whose labors his 
father had favored. While enriching himself with the plunder, 
and amusing himself with the miseries, of the fairest portions of 
England, he lifted his hand against the faith of the poor, op- 
pressed people. Nevertheless, it is reported that a late repent- 
ance at length overtook him, and caused a total change in his 
policy. His son and successor, the renowned Canute, who wore 
upon his brows the double diadem of Denmark and England, was 
not only a Christian himself, but did not cease his assiduous 
efforts to propagate the true religion till he had brought his own 
paternal realm into the confederacy of Christian states. 

When the consecrated banners of William the Norman waved 
victorious upon the field of Hastings, Alexander II. perhaps con- 
gratulated himself upon having brought another kingdom to his 
feet in servile submission ; but if so, he had sadly mistaken the 
character of the Conqueror. The ancient Anglo-Saxon church, 
which had survived all the Danish invasions, had been founded 
by his illustrious predecessor, and had inherited from the Bene- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 345 

dictine monks sentiments of thorough loyalty and of profound rev- 
erence for the chair of St. Peter ; but this did not satisfy the 
haughty potentate, who had waxed so mighty in his self-esteem 
that he felt himself the visible representative and earthly vice- 
gerent of Almighty God. The equally haughty Norman had no 
objection to any amount of papal blessing, would doubtless have 
accepted another kingdom, had it been offered him at a similarly 
easy price, and might even have allowed the commissioner of the 
pope to sanctify his very shoes, had the pontiff been Hadrian IV. 
and made him a gift in fee-simple of Ireland ; but facile as William 
could be in such matters, he was tenacious enough about retaining 
both his property and his rights, when once he had gained them. 
He was not the man to become voluntarily and unnecessarily the 
vassal of any one : so when Gregory VII. ventured to demand not 
only Peter-pence but the performance of homage to him as liege- 
lord, William allowed the money to be collected as proper eccle- 
siastical dues, but gave the pontiff to understand that he did not 
consider him as his master, and would not perform fealty to him. 
Notwithstanding this bold refusal, the reign of William I. was 
upon the whole decidedly favorable to growth of the papal pre- 
tensions, both directly by giving bishops independent jurisdiction 
over certain classes of causes which had previously been adjudi- 
cated by the earl and bishop sitting together in the county court, 
and indirectly by breaking down the free institutions of the Saxon 
code and putting others in their stead which promoted the interests 
of tyranny. The Saxon Stigand was obliged to make room for 
Lanfranc as archbishop of Canterbury, and the other prelates were 
also deprived, Pome taking care that those instituted in their sees 
should be wholly subservient to her. 

In the reign of Henry II. were enacted the Constitutions of 
Clarendon, with a view to preserving some degree of independence 
among the English clergy. Thomas a. Becket, the archbishop of 
Canterbury, interposed a sturdy resistance on behalf of Pome, 
but paid the penalty of his misdirected zeal when he fell a victim 
to royal anger and courtly sycophancy on the very steps of the 
altar. The results of this horrible deed were the canonization of 
the martyr, the abolition of the Constitutions and a withdrawal 
of the prohibition of carrying up appeals to the patriarchal throne, 
and a substantial victory for the papacy. 

It not infrequently happens that too great eagerness to im- 



346 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

prove a success converts it into a defeat. Innocent III. pressed 
hard upon John Lackland, a weak and worthless ruler, insisted 
upon his right to control the election of an archbishop, and asserted 
it by putting the whole realm under an interdict. That a brother 
of the Lion-hearted Richard should have tamely resigned his crown 
into the hands of Pandulph, the papal legate, and stooped to re- 
ceive it from him again as a vassal of the Roman see, is simply 
astounding. No wonder that the barons turned away their eyes 
from the sickening spectacle, and then, under the leadership of the 
noble archbishop, Stephen Langton, and his brother in renown, 
William, earl of Pembroke, advanced with steady step towards the 
civic triumph of Runnymede, which gave England her Magna 
Charta, a document of hardly less importance in ecclesiastical than 
in secular annals. 

The task of defending English liberties from foreign aggression 
was one in which other church dignitaries besides Langton de- 
lighted to share. That prelate achieved his great success in 1215, 
a date memorable in history. A few years later the see of Lincoln 
was honored by a bishop who, through the weight of his example 
and the direct influence of his writings upon such men as Wycliffe 
and Huss, perhaps deserves to be called the father of the Reforma- 
tion. Great as a scholar' and thinker, and greater yet as one who 
did not flinch from speaking out at the biddings of conscience, even 
when his utterances were sure to be distasteful both to the general 
laxity of the age and also to the insolence of autocratic power, 
Robert Grosseteste rebuked the vices of his times, and disregarded 
the excommunication of Innocent IV. 

The succeeding century gave birth to a man well-worthy to 
follow in the footsteps of Robert " Greathead." Master of all the 
learning of his time, and particularly strong in biblical knowledge, 
John "Wycliffe soon discovered how far in many respects the re- 
ceived theology had strayed from catholic truth ; and, being an 
earnest, religious, high-souled man, felt his spirit burn with right- 
eous indignation at sight of the hollowness of clerical zeal and 
piety, the prevailing wickedness of the commonalty, and the op- 
pressive practices of those in authority. He began by vehemently 
denouncing the vicious and luxurious lives of the clergy, then 
opened a sustained fire upon the papal militia, the ubiquitous, 
intrusive, and meddlesome friars, and finally (a diplomatic visit 
to Bruges which brought him into close intercourse with the 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 347 

nuncios of the pope having produced on him a similar effect to 
that which was afterwards wrought upon Luther by a short so- 
journ in the metropolis of Christendom), turned his heavily- 
shotted guns full upon the papacy itself. Not content with these 
achievements, he gave the English people the Bible translated 
into their own tongue, earnestly exhorting them to read it, and 
even exposed the gross error of transubstantiation. It was with 
difficulty that he escaped from the bitter malice of the numerous 
and powerful enemies whom he created for himself by assailing 
wrong as every soldier of Christ is bound to do, and especially by 
reviving the hated opinions which had almost made a martyr of 
Berengarius. However, he died peacefully on the last day of the 
year 1384 at his benefice of Lutterworth, to which he had been 
presented by Edward III. ; a fate which possibly would never 
have been his had not attention been diverted from his agitations 
by the Great Schism which began with the death of Gregory XL 
The insurrection of Wat Tyler, on the other hand, might easily 
have proved fatal to him, as it would have been only natural for 
the government to have taken the same view which has since been 
adopted by the learned and judicious Hallam, of his having been 
partially responsible for that tremendous movement. His opinions 
survived, not only in the sect of the Lollards, but as a leaven work- 
ing throughout the Latin church and hastening the period of eman- 
cipation from spiritual thralldom. To him, it may be, the Conti- 
nental Reformers owed at least as much as the English Church was 
ever indebted to Luther or Calvin. 

Throwing now a retrospective glance over the history of the 
English Church from its foundation to the time of its severance 
from Rome, we are sensible of a deficiency in our proof. It is 
one thing to protest against encroachments, and another, and 
often a very much harder, thing to ward them off. That bold spirits 
were found among the descendants of.Hengist and Horsa, of 
Alfred, Harold, and William, to lift their voices in denunciation 
of tyranny, redounds greatly to the glory of the country that gave 
them birth. But in order to persuade ourselves that they suc- 
ceeded in maintaining the independence of the insular church, 
we would be compelled to forget not a little which, however un- 
pleasant to recall, we yet all too well know to be matter of fact. 
The English, it is true, contended against the wretched practice 
of conferring benefices upon non-resident foreigners ; but did they 



348 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

prevent its continuance? They struggled bravely against the 
equally objectionable custom of transferring causes to the papal 
court : did their threats of inflicting the pains and penalties of a 
prcemunire, or of being proclaimed an outlaw, deter condemned 
ecclesiastics from appealing to an extraneous tribunal ? However 
gallant was the resistance offered by the Throne, Peers, Commons, 
or Church of England, their efforts fell far short of such achieve- 
ments. If the English Church was not part and parcel of the 
great Latin Church, bound up with the others by those various 
ties which consolidate different national communions into one great 
corporate body, we might despair of being able to point out any, 
except the Italian, that was a portion of it. Look at France, 
with her " Gallican Liberties " fenced in by the Pragmatic Sanc- 
tion of St. Louis (IX.) ! See Charles VII. replacing this docu- 
ment with another which was even more pronounced in its asser- 
tion of national rights, and then Philip the Fair dispatching the 
able lawyer, William de Nogaret, to seize that ambitious and 
powerful pontiff, Boniface VIIL, and bring him prisoner to 
France ! And, shocking to relate ! behold the iron gauntlet of 
the lawyer smite heavily upon that proud head ! Was France, 
which set up, and thrust down, the puppet-popes of Avignon, a 
part of the Pomish church, and was not England, which would 
have cut off her right hand rather than have so dishonored the 
Apostolic See ? 

The Church of England has little reason to be proud of the 
monarch whose hand broke the fetters that had so long chafed her ; 
for a man who does not hesitate to murder a wife by judicial 
process as soon as he desires to be rid of her, may be a learned, 
and able, and popular sovereign, but must remain, for all time, in 
the eyes of Christian people, a monster of iniquity. That the 
utmost ingenuity of the most skillful historian will ever succeed 
in erasing the stain of such an atrocious fact from the biography 
of Henry VIIL, it can hardly be presumptuous to doubt. It 
must also be clear to the reflective mind, that labored attempts to 
whitewash his character only rebound against the church in whose 
interest they seem to be made, and injure her reputation by giving 
color to the strange and utterly unfounded notion, that it is a 
matter of very great concern to her that his escutcheon should be 
untarnished. What was Henry VIIL to her more than any other 
monarch ? If God is mercifully pleased to overrule the bad pas- 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH 349 

sions of evil men so as to make them subserve His own divine pur- 
poses, what is that to us ? Henry neither made, nor undertook to 
make, the reformed Church of England ; he quarreled with Home 
and compelled his realm to unite with him in the quarrel : that 
w r as all. Thus the wickedness of the king measured itself against 
the wickedness of religious usurpation, the contention enabling 
the down-trodden Church to take one long stride towards freedom. 
Out of evil came good. Shall we say that good so derived is not 
good ? We are forbidden to do evil in order that good may come, 
but not to obtain what benefit we can from evil that is unavoid- 
able. Henry arrogated to himself a very high-sounding title as 
earthly head of the church, and the two convocations were forced 
to concede much of his claim; but we cannot think that the 
divine favor was forever forfeited by recognizing the civil ruler as 
u Head of the Church and Clergy, so far as the law of Christ will 
allow ; " which was the utmost that could be extorted from the two 
Houses. 

We need not, however, conceal our regret that such a conces- 
sion was ever made. It was a pity to take up a fresh yoke the 
moment the old one was discarded. Yet the yoke was only 
nominally a new one, for ever since Constantine the churches 
everywhere had borne it upon their necks. The great defect of 
the Anglican Eeformation was its Erastianism. That ecclesiastical 
causes should be tried before judges, who may be devout church- 
men, but may also be anything else; that bishops should be 
elected and consecrated at the imperious dictation of a prime 
minister ; and that laws should be made for the government of 
religious affairs in a parliament that may be largely composed of 
Jews, Turks, Infidels, and Heretics, is surely not the condition in 
which the Master intended that His kingdom should exist. 
Though the life of the Church is not destroyed at once and inevi- 
tably by falling into such bondage, it must be impaired and seri- 
ously imperiled. 

In the sixteenth century it was not even conceived possible 
that a religious organization could preserve an independent, and 
yet friendly, attitude towards the civil government. Two inher- 
ently antagonistic conceptions had the ground all to themselves, 
the one that the State has the right to control the Church, the 
other precisely the reverse of this. The latter was the grand 
papal theory of Hildebrand, and was slowly fighting its way 



350 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

towards absolute dominion over the minds of all zealous church- 
men. The only theory which was strong enough to dispute pos- 
session of the field was the one so attractive to monarchs who 
were striving with all their might, and with all the resources of 
political scheming, to erect permanent and magnificent kingdoms 
upon the ruins of the overgrown baronies which, in feudal times, 
set at naught the authority of sovereigns and did not hesitate 
to meet them with hostile arms. Out of the clashing of rival 
theories was gradually being evolved greater freedom of thought 
and liberty of action. In England, at least, were slowly growing 
up institutions and laws, which would presently transfer the control 
of public affairs from the hands of a few to those of the great mass 
of the nation, and protect the humblest citizen from the insolence 
and oppression of the most powerful. During the centuries be- 
tween the Conquest and the Reformation, the Commons of England 
were fighting their way inch by inch into importance and power ; 
the noble system of the Common Law, the condensed common- 
sense of generations, codified by many of the best, purest, and 
most practical minds that any bar ever boasted, was gradually 
being perfected ; and the great heart of the people was being 
trained into a due sense of the value of civil liberty. Hardly any 
reign was less favorable to the development of free institutions 
than that of the mighty tyrant who made his power felt in a 
Europe that was being converted into a theatre upon which 
might be displayed the prowess of such giants as Charles V. and 
Francis I. Henry VIII. set his foot upon the neck of prostrate 
England, and held his sceptre in a grasp of iron ; and yet Henry 
dared not to break the laws. He might override them most 
execrably, he might threaten judges and bully parliaments, but 
the dictates of his selfish and willful heart had to get themselves 
executed in some way that recognized the formal validity of the 
statute-book. The popular movement slowly went on. A suc- 
cession of Henries would either have crushed out its life or stung 
it into such madness that the throne would have been cast prema- 
turely down ; but father and daughter, even though that daughter 
was the patroness of Essex, failed to do more than temporarily 
check its advance. Slowly reviving under the Stuarts, the Spirit 
of Liberty struggled hopefully on through the Rebellion and 
the Restoration, welcomed the Revolution, and despaired not 
through a long period of official corruption, till at last she saw 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH 351 

herself enthroned far above the nominal seat of the house of 
Hanover. 

Is it to be supposed that liberal thought conscientiously ab- 
stained from intruding upon the territories of religion ? If 
Henry's utmost strength could not overthrow the bulwarks of 
civil liberty, could he have seriously retarded the progress of 
ecclesiastical reform ? How strange a notion is that so commonly 
entertained, that a single resolute mind can mould a nation and an 
age ! Had England not been ready for a breach with Pome, 
what would have come of Henry's action, any more than of any 
one of the numerous quarrels in which the Pope had been en- 
gaged with almost every portion of the vast realm over which he 
claimed paramount jurisdiction ? If Henry made the Church of 
England, surely Mary unmade it in her turn ; so that it arose 
afresh under Elizabeth, and may trace its pedigree from her. Say 
that Henry had continued in the course he was smoothly pursu- 
ing when he won for himself from the Pope the proud title of 
Defender of the Faith, in reward for a book which he composed 
in support of the Pomish sacramental doctrine; and had bent all 
his tremendous energies towards the suppression of every symptom 
of revolt from papal domination which might show itself among 
his trembling subjects ; does any one believe that, even under such 
adverse circumstances, the plant of religious independence would 
never have taken root in the insular soil ? 

As it was, did not Henry rather delay, than hasten, the work 
of reform ? Was not, for example, his tyrannical enforcement of 
the doctrine of transubstantiation even more injurious to the 
church than his denial of the pope's supremacy was beneficial? 
Did not his arbitrary measures sow seeds of contention among the 
difforent parties into which churchmen soon banded themselves, 
that a gentler and wiser hand would never have scattered ? Must 
not incalculable evil have resulted from the needless controversies 
and strifes into which Cranmer and Gardiner led their eager par- 
tisans, and for what did they really fight but for the favor of their 
terrible sovereign ? It certainly cannot be, by any means, sure 
that, had matters been allowed to drift quietly along in their natural 
channels, without the interference of the King, the Church through- 
out the extent of England would not presently have attained a 
condition of more perfect reform than it has yet reached, and that 
too with less delay than marked the progress it did make. If it 



352 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

be objected that all this is mere conjecture, we reply that con- 
jecture on one side is as good and permissible as on the other. 

In defense of Henry's conduct two considerations may prop- 
erly be urged. In the first place, having been carefully trained in 
a school of which his disposition fitted him to be an apt scholar, 
and having learned to exercise his ingenuity in discovering argu- 
ments on both sides of every question ; having been nurtured in a 
profound reverence for law, and yet taught to treat the most 
solemn enactments as plastic material to be moulded by his dia- 
lectical skill, the royal Tudor, although he might play havoc with 
the spirit of human or divine law, was watchful not to transgress 
the letter, according, at least, to his own interpretation of it; 
entertaining an implicit confidence that he would be permitted to 
entrench himself behind the logic of the schools, even when sum- 
moned before the Last Tribunal. In many ways was this pecu- 
liarity manifested. Those whom he designed to punish were con- 
victed according to due legal form, instead of being privately as- 
sassinated or publicly executed by royal mandate alone. If it be 
greatly to the credit of English public sentiment that the tyrant 
was obliged to observe the forms of law, is it not equally to the 
praise of English morality that he thought it necessary to trouble 
himself about ceremonies of another sort ? If the king was merely 
the licentious brute that many would paint him, it is at least de- 
serving of passing notice that he thought it worth his while to 
remove one woman out of the way before he took another. Was 
the immaculate virtue of the palace so astonishingly lynx-eyed 
that no less troublesome path was open to the wandering of royal 
inclinations ? A hint at least concerning marriages of conven- 
ience might have reached him from across the Channel. 

In the second place, it is hardly too much to affirm positively 
that the monarch of England had the right upon his side in the 
dispute which led to the breaking out of hostilities. The question 
was one which involved the title to the succession. The misery 
and carnage of the Wars of the Roses had only lately been ended, 
to the great relief of all parties, by the famous victory of Bos- 
worth field. Was the land once more to be deluged with its own 
blood, because " courageous Richmond " had been too solicitous 
to strengthen his throne by the continuation of an alliance with 
the royal family of Spain ? Catharine of Aragon was the lawful 
wife of Arthur, prince of Wales, the eldest son of Henry VII. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 353 

What right, then, had she to be joined, upon the death of her 
husband, in holy matrimony with, his younger brother ? None 
whatever according to the Laws of England, the Canon Law, and, 
not impossibly, the Law of God. Nevertheless, a papal dispensa- 
tion was obtained from Julius II. permitting the marriage to take 
place, and it was solemnized accordingly. Such a connection was 
void ah initio, and must always have been considered so by sound 
theologians. Was the pope indeed able to abrogate the divine 
law ? The shortest-sighted must have foreseen the strong proba- 
bility that the reign of the daughter born of this union would be 
an extremely troubled one. Was it not an age rife with commo- 
tions, and in which pretenders were ready to start up at the brief- 
est notice? Would not such a flaw in the title breed pretenders? 
Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, had opposed the marriage 
from the first. The universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and a 
large number of foreign universities which had been consulted at 
the suggestion of Cranmer, pronounced it invalid ; as did many 
distinguished individuals, among whom were (Ecolampadius and 
John Calvin. It is impossible, therefore, to evade the admission 
that Henry's side was a very strong one, and that regard for the 
peace of his posterity, the welfare of his country, and the honor 
of himself and his family, would have impelled the most righteous 
and prudent sovereign to prosecute the inquiry to a definite 
and final issue, if such could by any possibility be reached. Had 
Catherine only been young, beautiful, attractive, and as fondly 
beloved as Anne Boleyn, our sympathies would doubtless have 
been powerfully called forth for the young and ardent lover who, 
through no fault of his own, had found himself wedded to his 
brother's widow, and obliged to move high and low, far and near, 
in order to satisfy himself that he had a wife and not a mistress. 
And why should not our pity, at least, be granted Henry even 
under all the circumstances ? If we picture to ourselves that mag- 
nificent Prince in the glory of his youth, matchless for strength 
and beauty, must we not feel that when his heart had been laid 
on the altar of state policy, a sacrifice had been made not less 
than that which the virgins were accustomed to lament yearly 
upon the mountains of Israel. 

There is a busy and exciting scene which can be witnessed on 
any of the great rivers used as highways for the transportation of 
timber. Somewhere in the middle of the stream is piled a huge 



354: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

heap of logs, flung together in the wildest confusion, and offering 
to the mad rush of waters an unaccustomed impediment, against 
which they hurl themselves with fury, boiling and surging as they 
fall back and then sweep past. The insecure island, shivering 
now and again beneath the blows which are dealt it, swarms with 
hardy river-men clad in bright-colored flannel garments, dextrous 
in wielding the axe and cant-dog. Immense trunks roll over and 
over in response to well-directed efforts, plunge into the current, 
and are borne away. Logs which are so tightly held that they 
cannot be disengaged, snap and crack under the sharp-edged axe. 
All the labor seems in vain, for the other logs which are perpetu- 
ally floating down from above add to one side of the "jam " as 
fast as the other is diminished. Hours may be thus spent, no 
visible progress having been made, when suddenly every shirt, 
red or blue, will be seen springing with all possible speed towards 
the ready bateaux, like quarry-men running from a blast. Woe 
to him who is a moment too late ! The largest trees lift them- 
selves with butt in air, stand an instant perpendicular, and then 
topple over, falling with a noise like distant thunder ; and the 
whole mass, slowly getting under headway, yields to the pent-up 
current, and goes on sporting in its wild merriment towards the 
next obstruction. When the right log had been dislodged, — the 
one single log which, having first caught upon some projecting 
rock, had formed the nucleus around, beneath, and over which 
innumerable others had collected, — every river-man knew that it 
was time to leave the trembling mass. This is a parable. In 
Mediaeval times there was one grand obstruction which interposed 
itself whenever agitation was made for reform. Were objections 
urged, against superstitious phraseology which had crept into the 
liturgy, or idolatrous practices which had fastened themselves upon 
the ritual, these must not be altered without permission from 
Rome. Were charges preferred against the clergy, of conduct 
inconsistent with the discharge of their sacred functions, the aegis 
of Rome was extended over them. Were petitions presented by 
those who suffered from exactions or felt themselves aggrieved by 
the withholding of their rights and privileges, they must not be 
granted till the pope had approved them. Did some independent 
thinker desire to examine any mooted point of divinity upon its 
merits, let him beware that he did not seem to question the cor- 
rectness of any papal utterance with regard to it ! The one log 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 355 

upon which the entire mass rested was that of the Papal Supremacy. 
When the random blows of Henry had shaken that loose, the 
whole pile of abuses, errors, and corruptions began to move off. 
The breaking of jams is often a very dangerous business. So 
many of the prime movers in reforming the English Church found 
their undertaking, and not a few of them were almost literally 
broken and crushed by the tossing and grinding mass ; but that 
mass, once started by the removal of the original obstruction, 
could hardly choose but break up and be carried away. 

It was as though in Henry's reign a sudden recession of the 
the waters revealed the hidden impediment with unusual clearness. 
The dispute was not an ordinary one between King and Pope, 
which must of course involve a strong tendency to dispute the 
latter' s claims, but it was of such a nature that the very point at 
issue vitally affected the Roman position, the question being, 
Can the Pope annul the canon law so as to sanction an incestuous 
marriage ? Instead of taking a firm, bold stand, as the occasion 
demanded, Clement VII. practiced the wiles of state-craft, and 
thereby complicated matters exceedingly. To have distinctly 
refused to hear anything impugning the course of his predecessor, 
who had officially approved the marriage, would have given 
Clement strength with that party which looked with disappro- 
bation upon what they deemed the criminal levity of a young 
libertine ; but to vacillate between a desire to conciliate Henry 
and the fear of offending Charles, was to show plainly of how 
little real value in determining important questions was that ex- 
pensive, arrogant, and boastful hierarch, the pretended successor 
of St. Peter, and consequently to pave the way for throwing off 
his yoke. While Clement was dallying, Henry was winning over 
public sentiment to his side, inducing members of parliament to 
sign that extraordinary petition in which they affirm the justice 
of the king's cause and demand, almost with peremptoriness, a 
favorable decision, and generally influencing his realm against the 
dilatory and time-serving prince of the Vatican. 

The great barrier was at last thrown down and men's minds 
allowed to revert to genuine catholicity. What a deliverance was 
this ! A sad period was it in church history during which the 
fountain of truth was walled up and fast locked from the inquirer, 
and all men were obliged to quench their thirst at the turbid and 
unwholesome stream of garbled doctrine. A blessed thing it was, 



356 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

too, for the English Church, that her taste had not become so per- 
verted by long deprivation of pure water, that she preferred to 
hew out cisterns into which she might turn the filtered current, 
rather than to imbibe the liquid crystal that flowed through the 
appointed channels. Fortunately, her appetite was not seriously 
vitiated. She showed how deep still was her love for the Divine 
Teacher by returning at once, the road having been opened, to 
His own blessed instructions, as given to the saints of the Early 
Church, and by them taught, both orally and by writing, to those 
that followed them. She had no desire to build up systems of 
her own, into which she need incorporate only such views of truth 
as pleased her ; nor did she display that overweening confidence in 
herself which often prompts the intellect to evolve doctrine out of 
its own inner consciousness ; but was glad to receive doctrine and 
dogma from the hands to which Christ Himself had entrusted them. 
Reverence for Antiquity has always been the crowning glory of 
the reformed Church of England, her great safeguard, and the 
distinguishing feature of her divines. And why are these always 
ransacking the treasures of the Early Church ? Was it because 
they were deficient in learning, in acuteness, or in independence 
of mind ? Had Pearson insufficient knowledge ? Was Hooker a 
feeble-minded person % Did Bull lack vigor and ability % Or was 
Dr. "Waterland unskilled in handling the weapons of debate? 
Nay, but these divines, these erudite, deeply pious, courageous, 
original, and profound leaders of the Anglican Communion, had 
wisdom and humility enough to see that the witness of God's 
Church is a surer guide than any other. 

The way in which the rejection and denial of the Pope's Su- 
premacy produced a reform of doctrine, can be most properly 
illustrated by referring to the case of Tr an substantiation, the 
greatest and most glaring of all the errors under which Latin 
Christendom lay groaning at the opening of the sixteenth cen- 
tury: For years after Henry had cast loose from the Church of 
Eome, this tenet continued to be held as firmly by the English 
Church as by the most violent Ultramontane. From Henry and 
Cranmer down to the rank and file of the Christian army, all men 
marched under this banner. If there did soon spring up a sect of 
sacramentarians who disputed the corporal presence of Christ in 
the Eucharist, Lambert discovered to his sorrow that it was not 
safe to advocate such a theory openly, for, after a learned discus' 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH 357 

sion before the King, in which Cranmer himself participated, the 
unflinching disputant, silenced but not convinced, was burnt under 
circumstances of peculiar barbarity. This disgraceful occurrence 
took place several years after the yoke of Rome had been cast off, 
but before the leaven of free inquiry had had time to work upon 
men's minds. Twelve years more were destined to elapse while 
the pious, learned, and moderate archbishop of Canterbury should 
be advancing through the stages necessary to be gone over in purg- 
ing his creed from the sacramental follies of the Lateran council. 
In the meanwhile, there had arisen in the person of the bishop of 
Rochester, Nicholas Ridley, the ablest theologian that had yet 
appeared upon the scene, who, by diligent study of Holy Scripture 
and careful perusal of the early Fathers, had reached a clear and 
definite conclusion, which he possessed both courage and skill 
enough to maintain against all comers. His influence over Arch- 
bishop Cranmer was that of a strong and resolute will upon a 
vacillating one, and it can hardly be doubted that, in this matter, 
he led the way for his weaker and less original coadjutor. While 
Bishop Ridley can hardly lay claim to the credit of having discov- 
ered the true view of the Eucharistical Presence which had been 
bidden behind the veil of Mediaeval superstition, there may be 
conceded him the high praise of having newly discovered, and 
dared to reassert, the hated doctrine, which had so nearly proved 
fatal when preached by Wycliffe in an age not yet ripe for revolt 
from papal domination. As long as that authority upheld the 
decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council and the numerous rescripts 
and bulls which favored the same view of the Eucharist as that 
which it promulgated, how was it possible to refute that doctrine 
publicly and yet remain in communion with Rome? In the 
privacy of his heart, in the bosom of his family, amid a small and 
select circle of friends, or even in the seclusion of an obscure parish, 
a man might treat the Vatican decree as invalid, and the dream of 
a material change as a figment, without being impelled by his 
conscience to break off his connection with a church which was 
really catholic, notwithstanding her fault ; but let him not force 
his unwelcome tenets upon public notice unless he wished to 
awake the impatient thunders of the new Jove ! Independent 
indeed must also have been the mind which, under such adverse 
influences and amid such heavy discouragements, could undertake 
the task of original research. Little enough was there to tempt 



358 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

one from the safe and easy paths of deference and slavery into 
those harder ones of free inquiry. But when once the great bar- 
rier of absolute papal authority had been crushed beneath the 
iconoclastic hammer of England's angry monarch, the first keen 
eye which swept along the right line of investigation with search- 
ing glance was sure to see that, if transubstantiation was to de- 
pend upon the countenance of Scripture and primitive testimony 
for its foundation, it must be content to vanish into thin air with 
the baseless fabric of many another dream. The eagle eye of 
Nicholas Ridley caught sight of the real cloud-base, and. dilated 
with prophetic joy as it beheld even that dissolving into nothing- 
ness. The bishop pointed out what he saw to the slower vision of 
his illustrious superior, and the twain, together with that untamed, 
but heroic, spirit, Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester, represented 
it to the church at large, and with such good effect that in the 
reign of Edward YI. all signs of adherence to transubstantiation 
at last disappeared from the liturgical and doctrinal formularies 
of the English Church. 

Along with this great leading false doctrine fell many another, 
never to rise again except during the few years that the sceptre 
was held by that unfortunate daughter of Catherine who, looking 
instinctively towards her mother's native land for support to her 
own tottering throne and unpopular religion, gave her hand to 
that strange bigot whose name will ever be linked with execrations 
as that of the oppressor of the Netherlands, and with ridicule as 
that of the author of the " Invincible Armada." It was a short- 
lived triumph that Romanism enjoyed under "Bloody Mary." 
The doctrines of purgatory, the worship of saints, images, and the 
Yirgin, auricular confession, priestly absolution, indulgences, and 
penance, as well as those of transubstantiation and the pope's 
supremacy, prevailed from the death of Jane Seymour's son till 
Cardinal Pole and his royal mistress dropped almost simultane- 
ously the sceptres of Canterbury and of England ; but they had 
been gradually eliminated from the standards of the church dur- 
ing the two preceding reigns, and were to be finally ejected as 
soon as the vain, though able, daughter of Anne Boleyn should feel 
herself securely seated upon her father's throne. 

Much has been said and written concerning the influence of 
the Continental Reformers upon the contemporary movement in 
England. "While Henry's iron hand guided the helm of state, 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 359 

overtures were made to him by the Protestant Princes of Ger- 
many to join the Smalcaldic League on the basis of the Augsburg 
Confession. Melancthon was consulted by the English leaders : 
he was invited to visit the country. Bucer, Peter Martyr, and 
many others transplanted their doctrines into the kingdom ; while 
Jewel, Cox, Coverdale, Knox, and a large number of refugees, at 
Frankfort and elsewhere, came, more or less directly, into contact 
with both schools of foreign reformers. What, and how much, 
does the reformed Church of England owe to Wittenberg and Gen- 
eva? Some acceleration, perhaps, but a vast amount of confusion 
and permanent injury. What benefit she received from them, she 
paid for at an immense price. Did the land of Wycliffe and the 
home of Ridley need an impulse from abroad to free it from papal 
tyranny ? Let those who choose, believe in such an amazing ne- 
cessity ! We are moved to retort that the Church of England 
could have very well spared such unruly spirits, as were some of 
the imported divines as well as her own returned refugees, like 
Knox and Cartwright ; that her diseases were hardly severe enough 
to need the terrible purgation of Cromwell's rebellion ; that her 
constitution was little strengthened by having her vitals strained 
and torn by the fierce contentions of Presbyterians and Independ- 
ents ; and that these were precisely the debts she owed to the 
Saxons and Helvetians, — these, and nothing else. This is not in- 
tended to be of the nature of a retort discourteous. We need not 
throw these things up against the Continental Reformers as inten- 
tional injuries of which they were guilty ; — nor need we be par- 
ticularly grateful for such benefits. We respectfully submit that 
the National Church which possessed the universities of Cambridge 
and Oxford and the memories of Stephen Langton and Robert 
Grosseteste, was perfectly competent to take care of herself, that 
she had scholarship enough to translate the Bible and read 
Cyprian and Irenasus, Chrysostom and Augustine, the Cyrils, 
Gregories, Basils and Ensebii, Ambrose and Athanasius, and to 
deduce from such sources the True Faith of Genuine Catholicity, 
even if she had never heard so much as a single word concerning 
Luther's views of Justification, or Calvin's, of Predestination. 

It was hardly within the range of possibility that a church, 
upon which had systematically been forced for centuries a conge- 
ries of false doctrines, should suddenly arise and shake herself en- 
tirely free from error, returning at once to the pristine purity from 



360 TEE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

which she had fallen. How could it have been expected that the 
English Church would succeed in accomplishing this after she had 
been so long subject to Rome and exposed to the corrupting in- 
fluences of papal emissaries ? Where there were rajs of clear 
catholic teaching to guide her, she might indeed recover with 
speed and certainty the sacred deposit that had partly been 
wrested from her grasp ; but, unfortunately, upon more than one 
important point with regard to which a decided stand had to be 
taken, the undivided body had not spoken unequivocally, because 
there had not been occasion to do so. In such cases it would be 
incomparably more difficult for her to ascertain the mind of the 
Spirit, because the abominations of her long servitude had defiled 
the mirror in which alone it could be seen reflected. She had lost 
the talisman by which truth could be distinguished from inven- 
tion. The continued inculcation of error through generations had 
destroyed the sensitiveness of the common understanding, by 
which in better times, while the multitude had not yet suffered 
the contaminations of a worse than Egyptian bondage, it had in- 
stinctively turned towards eternal verity. The wonder ought not 
to be that the English Reformation did not escape without flaws 
appearing in the manufactured fabric, but that they were so few 
in number and not more vital in kind. Upon the removal of the 
disturbing mass, the needle flew back and pointed with marvelous 
closeness towards the true north. 

In early times it was a very rare occurrence for any sect to do 
away with the old received method of church government. 
Whether they were mere schismatics like the Donatists of Africa, 
or heretics also like the followers of Arius, Eusebius, and Aetius, 
the separatists always took pains to preserve an apostolic ministry. 
None but the wildest sects, entirely outside of the pale of Chris- 
tianity, such as the Manichseans, ventured to construct new hier- 
archies. Therefore, the early church had never had cause to pro- 
nounce definitely upon the necessity of maintaining the time- 
honored order. It might be demonstrable that it had acted and 
taught in such a way as to imply a belief in the validity of episco- 
pal ordination, and of that alone under any and all circumstances, 
but such belief had certainly never been authoritatively formu- 
lated. Consequently the church question came before Cranmer 
and his compeers pressing for an adjudication, but affording them 
little upon which to base one. And there was no question which 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 361 

Roman assumption Lad done more to perplex. Had she not been 
teaching, ever since the days of Leo, if not from an earlier period 
than even that, that she was the centre of Christendom, its stand- 
ard of orthodoxy, its principle of unity, its very heart and life ? 
Generation after generation had grown up in implicit belief of 
this doctrine, even within the sea-lashed borders of freedom-loving 
Britain. And now the Island Church had flown off from this 
great centre of attraction. How shall it live disunited from the 
heart ? Can it set up an independent circulation ? "Who does not 
see that the belief in visible ecclesiastical unity was shaken to its 
very roots, especially since it was testified by all authentic history 
that the "Western Patriarchate had assumed prominence so far 
back that the mind of man hardly ran to the contrary ? If the 
English Church had been torn loose from the Apostolic See, was it 
not in fully as bad a position as even the continental bodies, with 
their wholly new organizations ? Moreover, the arrogant pontiffs 
had sought to degrade the priesthood in general by insisting that 
its whole authority emanated from God's vicegerent, to the extent 
that all bishops and presbyters were merely his delegates, by him 
commissioned and empowered to act in his name, thus confusing 
the boundaries of the different orders and powerfully tending to 
subvert the entire theory of a divinely authorized ministry. 
What was to become of episcopal authority after the incensed 
pope had withdrawn so much of it as he had conveyed ? How 
natural it was for such as had been taught to trace the clerical 
commission to Home as its source, to look for another fountain of 
delegated authority to him before whom they now did homage as 
the earthly head of the ecclesiastical corporation, and to accept 
the execrable notion that the Christian ministry is a higher spe- 
cies of state police ! Thus much, at least, had Rome clone to 
confound men's minds on this momentous topic, and she had a 
potent ally in that feeling of sympathy which is so much stronger 
than all the arguments of logic. The Reformed communities of 
the continent were engaged in the same desperate struggle into 
which Henry had launched the English Church. All had one 
common foe; all fought in one common cause. How, then, should 
the Church of England refuse to those Christian societies the name 
of Sister Churches f "Would it not be extremely ungracious, little 
short of insulting, to withhold such a title from those with whom 
she was almost daily exchanging courtesies, and to whom she was 



362 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

herself beholden for many a favor? What right had she to pro- 
nounce upon the status of independent bodies ? If they, profess- 
ing steadfast adherence to all the great truths of Christianity, 
were content without apostolic ordination, was she so much wiser 
than they that she could adjudicate upon the tenableness of their 
position ? "With the thunders of the Vatican still rumbling in 
her ears, should she rashly alienate her best friends ? 

Now that the cloud of battle has lifted from the scene of con- 
flict, we may surely be permitted to survey the ground with our 
own eyes and draw our own conclusions. Let us remember that 
the church of the sixteenth century was not, like that of the 
fourth, an uncorrupted body contending against the inroads of 
heresy, but a diseased organization struggling to throw off the 
noxious humors. The Homoousion controversy was settled amid 
the turmoil of a tremendous war, but the orthodox party occu- 
pied a vantage ground which the Reformers did not possess. A 
chaotic condition of affairs prevailed in matters of doctrine during 
the era of the Reformation. Instead of holding fast to a form of 
sound words and to a well-defined system of established faith, the 
divines of that epoch were obliged to unearth the truth, each man 
for himself, from beneath an immense mass of rubbish. As every 
age has its peculiar tendencies, so that age had its own doctrinal 
bias. Let us never forget that, if the judicious Hooker was be- 
trayed into unfortunate admissions with regard to the status of 
the continental bodies, he also allowed himself to be bewildered 
by the fogs of predestination, and strenuously advocate such a 
figment as that of " Final Perseverance." It was no disgrace to 
that redoubtable champion that he could not at once fight his way 
clear of every obstruction ; but shall we refuse to profit from the 
efforts of the strong and true men who have since arisen ? The 
English Church seems finally to have shaken her skirts free from 
Calvinism, notwithstanding that Hooker, and Leighton, and Cole- 
ridge were tinctured strongly with the peculiar ideas of that sys- 
tem ; and why may she not be permitted to treat another six- 
teenth-century error in the same way ? Shall we forbid her to take 
so much as one step in advance ? Let, then, tbe torch be applied 
to her libraries and her institutions of learning, for of what use are 
the ponderous erudition and acute reasoning of a Bull or a Water- 
land, if they may not be permitted to instruct us more perfectly 
in the facts and beliefs of primitive Christianity, and to show us 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 363 

that even a Hooker could trip? How immense is the debt of 
gratitude due Almighty God for the protection He extended to 
the English Church while she was in the midst of so much confu- 
sion, guarding her from the great perils towards w T hich her warm- 
est sympathies were insensibly drawing her, and preserving to 
her the unbroken succession which she so grossly undervalued ! 

The same Reverence for Antiquity, which guided the progress 
of the English Reformers towards doctrinal correctness, marked 
their formation of a liturgy. In the Conference held at the Savoy 
in 1661, the Presbyterian divines presented for adoption, as a per- 
missible substitute for the Prayer-book then in use, a liturgy 
drawn up by a single individual, Richard Baxter, who must him- 
self have been not a little startled at the notion that such a hasty, 
ill-digested, and crude production could be put into the scales with 
a grand compilation which was the outgrowth of many centuries. 
Greater modesty presided in the councils of the Church. When in 
King Edward's reign the project was entertained of setting forth a 
service-book, there was no more thought of composing an entirely 
original one, than there was throughout the whole struggle an in- 
tention of devising a new platform of faith. The humble belief 
prevailed that such forms as had been cut out, rounded, and pol- 
ished by previous generations were likely to be incomparably 
superior to any compositions gotten up for the occasion. These 
might answer the purpose well enough if none better could be 
found, and would doubtless improve with the lapse of time and 
the changes which experience would suggest ; but where was the 
wisdom of throwing away all the fruits of ancestral labor, and be- 
ginning entirely anew? If, as was certainly the case, Romish 
errors had crept in, would it not be more prudent to weed them 
out than to dig the ground all over and plant fresh seed, which 
would be exposed to the inevitable vicissitudes of the seasons? 
So, gathering together the various liturgies which were employed 
in different sections and dioceses, chief among which ranked the 
" Use of Sarum," Cranmer and his committee set themselves the 
task of compiling from them a common use for the whole realm, 
religiously preserving the ancient forms as far as possible, care- 
fully eradicating, however, all that savored of false doctrine or 
objectionable observance, and substituting the vulgar tongue for 
the obsolete phraseology in which the meaning had hidden itself 
from all but the learned few. Thus was framed the First Service- 



364: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Book of Edward VI., which was issued in 1549, and forms the 
basis of the Book of Common Prayer now authorized by the 
Church of England. Instead of being the production of a few 
learned and pious men of a single generation, it may be said to 
have borrowed the choicest flowers from ancient liturgies, such as 
the Mozarabic and Gallican, and from the sacramentaries of Leo, 
Gelasius, and Gregory, and to contain anthems and collects which 
had been in constant use in the worship of Almighty God for per- 
haps as many as fifteen centuries. This book was revised under 
Edward in 1552, and again in 1559 under Elizabeth, was assailed 
by Non-conformist divines at the Conference granted by James I. 
at Hampton Court in 1604, and was subjected to a final assault by 
the Presbyterians at the Savoy discussion ; but passed through the 
ordeals without serious injury, although the clamor against it 
waxed hotter and hotter as Dissent grew stronger and more con- 
fident. The Prayer-book stood its ground, and soon enshrined 
itself in the love and veneration of all loyal children of the English 
Church as a most precious legacy of the Ages. 

Besides these service-books, documents and treatises of various 
kinds w r ere issued for the instruction and guidance of the clergy 
and people, and for the defense of the faith. Reluctant as the 
more prudent minds may have been to multiply forms of belief, 
and set authoritative limits to the rambling of opinion narrower 
than those which had been sufficient down to their day, a necessity 
was upon them from which they could not escape. It was the 
fashion of the times to fabricate catechisms and confessions. All 
parties were busy at the work. Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, and 
the Roman Catholics were shaping doctrines, fitting them together 
carefully, and framing them into strange edifices, which might be 
useful, but certainly were not attractive. Yet people in vast mul- 
titudes were seeking shelter within these skeleton houses, and, 
imagining themselves protected, were loudly praising the archi- 
tects, and shouting to others to come and join them. The English 
Church must either reconcile herself to the prospect of losing large 
numbers of her children, or else follow the general example and 
erect her own particular frame-work of doctrine; and indeed she 
could not but acknowledge that the universal prevalence of a 
debased faith had rendered expedient the setting forth in clear and 
authoritative formulae, accompanied with copious and accurate 
expositions, of those points in which it had suffered depravation. 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH 365 

Her singular merit was the never forgetting that she had no right 
to say what the faith ought to be, or to reason out what it must 
be, but that when once she had declared what it always had, been, 
her function was at an end. Instead of turning her glance in- 
ward to see what kind of a creed would best comport with her 
own ideas and feelings, she modestly and reverentially opened her 
ear to the testimony of the ages, distrusting the conclusions of her 
own understanding till she found them to harmonize with the 
teachings of the past. 

An archdeacon of Nottingham, as early as 1535, or only two 
years after the separation from Rome, drew up a simple tract 
intended for the unlearned public and called the King's Primer. 
The first series of Articles was published the next year by the 
joint authority of the King and both Houses of Convocation : they 
did not indicate the abandonment of mnch Romish error. A 
fuller exposition of the faith as then held was contained in the 
famons " Bishop's Book," or " The Institution of a Christian Man." 
Three years later the temporary triumph of Gardiner and the 
anti-reform party was signalized by the passage of a statute en- 
forcing Six Articles of a decidedly Romish complexion with such 
sanguinary rigor that the Act became known as the u six-stringed 
whip : " burning at the stake was the penalty affixed for disputing 
against tran substantiation, and death without benefit of clergy for 
denying any one of the five other Articles. Next came the 
"Rationale," which contained an explanation of ritual and a justi- 
fication of its retention ; and a little later the " King's Book " or 
the "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition of a Christian Man," in 
the composition of some difficult portions of which the hand of 
Redmayne is conspicuous, who was the Master of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, and not, perhaps, excelled in ability and breadth of 
mind by any of his contemporaries. It was in many respects a 
most admirable production, but labored under the great defect of 
strenuously maintaining transubstantiation, concomitancy, and 
non-communicating attendance. In 1547, the year of Edward's 
accession, appeared the first book of Homilies, intended to be read 
from the pulpit in the place of sermons ; the second book, although 
promised in the first, not being published till the reign of Eliza- 
beth. Besides the various series of Articles already mentioned, a 
set of Thirteen had been drawn up, on occasion of the negotiations 
opened, under Henry, with the Lutheran divines, to serve as a 



366 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

compromise or basis of union, but had never received any official 
sanction. These, however, were resuscitated as a guide for 
Cranmer and the learned divines who assisted him in preparing 
and revising the Forty-two Articles, which were just beginning to 
be put in circulation when the tide of Romanism rushed in through 
the gates that Mary's hand threw open. As soon as Elizabeth 
had restored the ascendancy to Protestantism, Archbishop Parker 
undertook a rearranging of the Articles of belief, being materially 
aided in this work by the ready cooperation of Jewel, the noted 
apologist. Those which he ultimately presented to Convocation 
differed only slightly from Cranmer's Forty-two, and were formally 
ratified, after a few modifications and erasures had been made, in 
1562. With some changes, they were afterwards sanctioned by 
the Queen and duly promulgated. Then, in 1571, they were 
again revised, signed anew by both Houses of Convocation, and 
sent forth into the world, Thirty-nine in number, and bearing the 
same form and appearance which they have ever since worn. 
This list may be closed with a brief notice of the Lambeth Articles, 
for which Archbishop Whitgift is responsible : they were thor- 
oughly Calvinistic and Supralapsarian, were received by Burleigh 
with strong disapprobation and by Elizabeth almost with disgust, 
and merely had the result of affixing a stigma to the name of their 
author. 

We have seen that the English Church, after asserting its in- 
dependence, retained both the faith and worship which it had had 
before, changing them gradually as it discerned cause under the 
white light of the pure and genuine catholicity to which it ap- 
pealed. We are now to inquire whether its organic existence was 
not impaired to such an extent that it ceased to be a living branch 
of the One Church. To determine that it preserved an apostolic 
ministry is not sufficient, because it might nevertheless, by cutting 
itself off from the body of the faithful, have forfeited its claim to 
the gift of the Holy Ghost. The whole investigation reduces itself 
down to this question, Was a sentence of excommunication, pro- 
nounced by a bishop who had so exalted his just patriarchal dig- 
nity that he claimed autocratic power over the churches, and 
acquiesced in by the numerous provincial churches which acknowl- 
edged his sway, against an autocephalous body on account of its 
refusal to submit any longer to his exorbitant, unfounded, and 
ungodly usurpations, sufficient to deprive that body of its character 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 367 

and being as a portion of that Church which Christ promised to 
be with unto the end of the world ? We answer distinctly, No ; 
for an unjust excommunication, as that most plainly was, is utterly 
invalid, except as injuring the one who fulminates it. This being 
admitted, w T e are thrown back upon the question, Did the reformed 
Church really possess a duly-ordained episcopal ministry ? If the 
English bishops and clergy were endued with the grace of Holy 
Orders before 1533, they must also have been so posterior to that 
important date of separation, because every bishop, — with the ex- 
ception of Fisher of Rochester, — consented to take the oath of royal 
supremacy. Mary having filled the sees with adherents of the 
papacy, it would have been entirely proper for Elizabeth, in her 
turn, to have expelled them and instated friends of the new move- 
ment ; but she was pleased to act towards the incumbents with 
great leniency, supplanting none but the most unyielding, whom 
she could not spare without violating the great law of self-protec- 
tion. A ridiculous story concerning the consecration of Matthew 
Parker has been manufactured out of whole cloth by Jesuitical 
unscrupulousness ; but it can be passed over with the brief re- 
mark that it is an unmitigated falsehood, deserving the appella- 
tion of the Nag's-Head Fable ; and that the worthy and distin- 
guished Archbishop was regularly consecrated at Lambeth, on the 
17th of December, 1559, by Barlow, Scory, Coverdale, and Hodg- 
kins, four bishops in good standing. The Church of Rome, we 
moreover allege, having withheld its bull of excommunication till 
1570, and so allowed all its followers within the borders of England 
to worship, for the first twelve years of the Virgin Queen, at the 
altars served by Parker's clergy, is in a very poor position to deny 
the validity of Anglican Orders. If Pius Y. and his predecessor 
did not by this delay tacitly acknowledge the English reformed 
Church as a living, if not as an independent, church, we are 
somewhat at a loss to imagine how they could have done so more 
effectually. 

The English Reformation, with all those fortunate character- 
istics which distinguished it from the Saxon and the Swiss, was 
not an accident, but the result, in a greater measure, of those causes 
which had made the English nation what it was, nourishing within 
it those two noble sentiments which, when properly combined, 
raise the national, or the individual, character to the very highest 
grade, — intense reverence for all that is venerable, and inextin- 



368 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

guishable love of liberty. "Working in the sphere of civil life, 
these two principles resulted in a steady march towards the per- 
manent establishment of free institutions, not so much by means 
of a series of revolutions, as through a temperate, but inflexible, 
resistance of aggression ; and evolved the Common Law, which is 
a system of precedents built upon the maxim that the old is not, 
without the very best of reasons, to be changed. In the sphere of 
religion, these same sentiments, the one restraining and the other 
impelling, held the Church tightly bound to the faith which had 
descended from its forefathers bearing the stamp of catholicity, and 
yet spurred it on to an examination of each and every article of 
the current belief which seemed at all doubtful, and to the final 
and absolute rejection of all which could not abide the test of the 
Yincentian Canon. Reverence and independence were traits of 
the national character, because the germs, w T hich are present in a 
more or less healthy condition in all races, had been peculiarly 
vigorous in the composite race which had grown out of the com- 
mingling of the original inhabitants with the successive invaders ; 
and because they had developed under such favorable auspices as 
were to be found in an insular situation, in the inheritance of 
various admirable codes of laws, and, above all, in the possession 
of a Church which is vitalizing air for them both. 

It is often easier to destroy and reconstruct than to modify and 
rearrange. Of all easy things, the easiest is to destroy. A feeble 
blow from an idiot's hammer can, in a single moment, hopelessly 
deface the master-piece of a Domenichino or a Michael Angelo, 
an infant's hand can apply the torch to an Alexandrian library, 
or a random bullet can paralyze the mightiest brain and biggest 
heart. The work of reconstruction is, of course, harder, and yet it 
may be far from difficult, provided the builder is not very careful 
as to what he builds. To burn a ship is not hard, nor is it a very 
laborious task to construct a raft from the floating timbers of the 
wreck; but to haul the vessel up on the ways, and substitute 
sound planks for such as have rotted away, requires the skill of an 
artisan. To overturn the settled order of government and institute 
a new one is often within the power of any shallow fanatic ; while 
to introduce needed reforms without resorting to the dangerous 
expedient of a revolution is an undertaking for the ablest states- 
man. The task before the English Reformers was not the simple 
one of undermining one theory and devising a new one, nor of 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 369 

throwing down one edifice and erecting another according to their 
own plans and devices, for such processes ^yq fatal to the Church 
of God ; but it was one of enormous difficulty, — not less than that 
of analyzing a vast mass of mingled truth and error with a view 
to liberating the pure faith, and of restoring the outward organiza- 
tion to its former condition without destroying or impairing its 
corporate existence. Could such a work have been accomplished 
in an hour, or a day, or a month, or a year ? Could it have been 
achieved by the fiat of a tyrant, the consultations of a convocation, 
or the assiduous labors of a pious sage ? Such a movement could 
• only have been brought to a happy termination by the gradual 
process of natural growth. As the man who has long suffered 
from severe disease cannot, by any means known to surgery or 
medicine, be at once completely cured, but must wait for the waste 
of his system to be slowly repaired by recuperative energy, so a 
sick church cannot be healed in a moment. All attempts to bring 
about such a result must produce disaster, and will be scouted by 
all sensible persons. 

How strong must have been the feeling of conservatism in the 
national breast of England to triumph over the tremendous as- 
saults which, now and again, threatened to drag or drive the church 
to one extreme or the other ! How indomitable the resolve with 
which public sentiment clung to the freeman's prerogative of 
thinking and acting for himself ! Henry's fierce despotism exerts 
itself in vain to tame the great throbbing heart of the nation and 
teach it to wear his chains. Scarcely has the liberated Church 
begun to taste the sweets of comparative freedom under the youth- 
ful Edward when death blights the fair promise of his reign. 
Then the caged panther broke loose and buried his keen fangs in 
the quivering flesh of his victim. With one blow of his paw he 
laid three mitred skulls in the ashes of Smithfield, sending dis- 
may through the timid bosoms of an unshepherded flock. The 
red banner floated over England and filled the atmosphere with 
the luridness which it shook from its folds. The heedless bigotry 
of Philip and the unmeasured presumption of Rome were so tem- 
pered by the wise moderation, Christian charity, and statesmanlike 
skill of Cardinal Pole that they crushed instead of goading. Yet 
the Church of England did not succumb. It speedily revived 
under the benignant sway of Elizabeth, who in the earlier part of 
her reign managed ecclesiastical affairs with singular discretion. 



370 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

With the accession of James I. the reactionary movement began 
to gather head which he was too feeble and timid to control, and 
which, taking advantage of the gross maladministration of his suc- 
cessor, deprived Strafford and Laud of their honors and lives, and 
finally sent Charles himself to the scaffold. Then disorder reigned 
supreme, working its wild will with priest, and prayer-book, and 
temple, and playing havoc with all that was sanctified by age, 
established usage, or divine appointment. What Puritanism 
could do to take the life of the National Church was done. If the 
Church had no need to complain, though her civil rights were 
taken from her and her revenues confiscated, had she no cause to 
feel aggrieved that her bishops were driven from their sees and 
her priests compelled to sit in idleness, their families starving 
around them, while their flocks were given over into the charge 
of those whose pastoral staves had never been put into their hands 
by divine authority, and who were sure to lead astray such as 
would follow them ? What men like Pearson, Bull, and Ussher 
suffered from Puritan persecution is matter of indelible record. 
Eight thousand of the clergy are said to have been deprived, and 
that without cause or provocation. Episcopacy was put under the 
ban, the Book of Common Prayer suppressed, churches turned 
into conventicles, altars desecrated. An Episcopalian might not, 
it is true, be seized the instant his faith was known, and hurried 
off to the dungeon, the rack, and the stake ; but he could neither 
bury his dead, baptize his children, marry his wife, nor procure 
the life-giving food of the Eucharist without encountering ob- 
stacles that would discourage any but the most persevering, ex- 
posing himself to the derision of his neighbors, and perhaps 
involving himself in contempt of some arbitrary statute. Was 
the life or the spirit of the persecuted church crushed out 
of her? The shield of her Lord's protection was over her, the 
strength of His favor within her. What the open assaults of 
Komanism and Puritanism failed to accomplish, the lukewarm- 
ness and insidious hostility of the House of Hanover under- 
took with no better success. Founded upon the Eock, Eng- 
land's sorely-tried Church endured the storms, and fell not. 
She was neither lashed into fury, nor frightened into weak com- 
pliance ; but through the dread ordeal, with pace quickened as 
the danger and the suffering increased, with eye fixed upon the 
cross which went before her as the pillar of cloud and of fire 



THE ENGLISH CHURCH. 371 

before Israel of old, she marched steadily forward towards genu- 
ine Catholicity. 

Would that in the mental constitution of Archbishop Cranmer 
there had entered somewhat more of courage and firmness ! Then 
might a noble name have been spared a blot which now rests upon 
it. But in that event perhaps the influence of Cranmer would 
have predominated too much, and fashioned Englishmen into 
Cranmerites instead of Churchmen. If that great and good man 
did yield to the threats of his enemies, there were those whose 
souls were made of better stuff, and he himself afterwards redeemed 
his fair fame by summoning resolution to die like a Christian hero. 
Who shall compute the number of those who have drawn inspi- 
ration from the glorious examples of Nicholas Ridley, and of 
staunch Hugh Latimer, most outspoken of prelates \ The English 
Church has little cause to be ashamed of such sons, or of the noble 
army of those who endured the life-long martyrdom of abuse and 
persecution at the hands of the Puritans. But let the memory of 
all such violence and ill-usage die out and be buried, except so 
far as it may be needed in order that we should duly value the 
martyrs of the Reformation. Blessed above all things to that 
communion were those times of trial. The prosperity of the 
Church, her alliance with the State, and the seeming support and 
strength and favor she thence derives, have raised up against her 
the bitterest enemies that have ever beset her pathway ; for even 
the Independents did not hate episcopacy so much as they did 
prelacy, not the hishop as much as the peer. Adversity, on the 
other hand, has been to her the chastisement of a loving and 
wise Father, driving away from her the false and the faint- 
hearted, training the steadfast in the duties of the true soldier, 
and forcing into prominence such as were endowed by their 
Creator with the qualities of leadership. Many giant intellects 
have been given her, filled to overflowing with the lore of ages 
and skilled in the use of all the weapons of logic, large hearts 
bubbling over with sympathy for all the hopes and fears of man- 
kind, throbbing with pity for its woes, and thirsting for oppor- 
tunities to advance its welfare both in time and in eternity, 
and resolute, inflexible, heroic wills, able to do, and dare, and 
suffer anything at the call of duty or the promptings of love; 
and much have these done to shed the brilliant light of Heaven 
upon the Church Militant within the boundaries of England ; 



372 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

but, for the rescue of that Church from the perils which crowded 
so thickly about her during the Reformation era, the praise 
must be ascribed to Him whose arm alone was strong enough 
to preserve what He alone could have created, the Kingdom of 
God on earth. 



CHAPTEK XX. 

THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 

Flying from the evils, real or imaginary, which attend his pres- 
ent lot or threaten his future, temporarily oblivious of the strong 
and lasting attachment which almost every mortal feels for the spot 
which gave him birth, impelled and sustained by the universal 
longing of humanity for change, and filled with high hopes re- 
garding the happiness to be found in strange climes and under 
altered circumstances, persons can always be enlisted in any ad- 
venture which holds out the glittering prizes of wealth and ease, 
to be won at the price of brief, if arduous, effort. When the 
genius and perseverance of the heroic Genoese had permanently 
added to the map of the world that distant continent, which 
poetry had depicted under the glowing imagery of the fabled At- 
lantis, and the roving barks of adventurous Northmen had sighted 
when running helpless before the prolonged tempest and anxiously 
looking for shelter, a vast territory invited the inhabitants of the 
densely-peopled states of Europe to breathe its free air and snatch 
the golden fruit held out by the prodigality of centuries as a re- 
ward for hardihood, independence, and daring. Many nations 
vied with each other in colonizing the new continent. The fore- 
most races of Europe sent of their boldest spirits as pioneers 
into the pathless wilderness, and when these fell victims to dis- 
ease, or famine, or the tomahawk, dispatched ten ardent recruits to 
fill the place of each. The choicest fountains mingled their waters 
in one stream, which sparkled with their combined virtues. If 
commixture of blood tends towards the production of a superior 
race, what a compounding was here ! One tributary brought 
from Palos and Barcelona the concentrated worth of the original 
Spaniard, the Eoman, the Goth, and the Moor ; another flowed 
laden with the noble qualities of the Gaul, the Frank, the ubiqui- 
tous Latin, and the Dane; a third bore along the fused nation- 



374: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

alities which had successively hurled themselves upon the English 
shores ; while Scandinavians, and Dutch, and Scotch, and Irish, 
and Germans, and the natives of Italy's fertile soil made up other 
rills to swell the mighty tide and render it still more composite. 
The settlers came to a glorious land. They built their huts be- 
neath the waving boughs of the primeval forest upon ground en- 
riched by the accumulated vegetal deposit of countless ages. At 
their feet broke the waves which had been gathering impetus ever 
since they sped from the unseen shore thousands of miles away. 
Behind them stretched the unbroken forest, for hundreds of miles, 
across mighty ranges that lifted their long backs skywards, ending 
then in boundless prairies which sadly renewed the infinitude of 
the sea. No shallow rivulets poured the furious torrents of win- 
ter with hoarse roar through the affrighted land, and then shrank 
abashed and exhausted into petty brooks, or left dry beds to mock 
the thirsty traveler ; but broad, deep, perennial rivers, rushing in 
silent strength and generous fullness through the laughing land, 
intersected the whole breadth of North America, at once afford- 
ing drainage and supplying moisture to the air, adding beauty to 
the landscape and offering priceless facilities to trade, commerce, 
and manufacture. One envies the Dutch navigator whose eye 
first traced the rugged rock-face of the Palisades, saw the soft 
light of evening rest upon the undulating eastern bank of Tappan 
Zee, dimly discerned the sharp peaks behind an elevated plateau 
which sweeps from the bold mountains about Rockland Lake to 
the historic vicinity of Stony Point, beheld the first ray of morn- 
ing smite upon Dunderberg's stern forehead, marked baffling 
winds ruffle the calm surface while opposing ranges conspired to 
retain his clumsy vessel in the charmed reach, lingered upon the 
grandeur of the Southern Gateway looming so solemnly far be- 
hind, looked through the Northern Entrance of the Highlands, 
with dome-shaped Storm King towering rock-fronted and awful- 
browed far above him, out upon the broad expanse of river and 
woodland to the shadowy Katskills, and delighted itself with 
the lovely bays and beautiful, rocky, evergreen-crowned promon- 
tories, which passed before it as the voyage extended northwards, 
feasting continuously upon an incomparable and ever-varying 
scene. Did he conjecture what an importance would presently 
attach to that lonely, but matchless, river as a main artery of a 
great metropolis ? Did he perceive how well calculated it was by 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 375 

nature to form the outlet of a vast agricultural district, laying its 
tribute at the wharves of a haughty city ? Was his power of 
penetration sufficient to show him in a vision how the multitudes 
of that city, rich and poor, when enervated and worn out by the 
luxuriousness and laborious excitement of such centres of wealth, 
would dart away from the unrest, the turmoil, the infected air, 
the depressing influences of the great emporium which should one 
day grow into such magnitude and dignity at its mouth, and take 
refuge amid the glories of this queenliest of rivers, slaking the 
thirst of their souls at the crystal pool provided by Nature's 
bountiful hand ? A glorious river and a glorious continent ! 
made, however, be it remembered, by God, and not by the proud 
nation who boast the possession of them. 

The voyage from Europe to America was long : it was per- 
ilous. Multitudes made it, nevertheless. The privations and 
dangers to be encountered when the settlement had been formed, 
were far from inconsiderable ; but were insufficient to deter those 
left behind from imitating the example of such as had gone before 
them. Anglo-Saxon blood and traditions predominated, and the 
sway of Great Britain was acknowledged from Hudson's Bay to 
the Gulf of Mexico. The English government presumes upon its 
authority, drives thirteen colonies into a revolt, and is compelled to 
concede their independence after a struggle which tests and de- 
velops the manhood of the Americans through eight years of 
severe trial. In 1812 another war breaks out by reason of an 
insolent claim which England advances to the right of searching 
our vessels for British sailors. At New Orleans, Plattsburg, and 
Lundy's Lane the countrymen of Wellington are overmatched. 
The choicest troops recoil from the push of American bayonets. 
On Lakes Champlain and Erie, and over the broad seas, McDon- 
ough, Perry, Bainbridge, Decatur, and other commanders tame 
the pride of the English navy. At the close of the first war a 
most admirable constitution is adopted under the influence of 
such men as Jefferson, Hamilton, the Adamses, and, above all, of 
that grandest of patriotic generals and statesmen, the illustrious 
Washington. The resources of the country are developed with 
marvelous rapidity. Civilization strides westward as fast as the 
avenues of commerce can be opened, and even outruns the pant- 
ing, screeching locomotive. That higher interests than those of 
material progress are not wholly neglected is proved by the 



376 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

springing up on all sides of school-houses and edifices for public 
worship, by the charts of the Coast Survey, by the establishment 
of stations for meteorological observation, and by the numerous 
and highly important contributions made by American sages, 
philosophers, and devotees of the fine arts, to learning, science, 
literature, and art. 

Nevertheless, being yet in her youth, America should look to 
the future for the achievement of worthy undertakings and for the 
acquisition of substantial fame. It is rather what she is yet to be- 
come than what she already is, that must mark out for her her 
proper place among the nations. She will wofully delude herself 
if she hearkens to the boastful strains of the orator who finds it to 
his interest that he should sing her praises. As she lives for the 
future, let her shun the dangers which threaten her. One great 
peril hangs portentous in her sky. Whence it comes we hardly 
may venture to ask. Is there lacking in the inherited traits of 
the American race a due proportion of Dutch phlegm and German 
patience and thrift \ or have the circumstances of its history and 
the nature of its institutions strengthened other characteristics at 
the expense of these ? or is there some peculiarity in the climate 
which diminishes robustness and vitality, and generates a certain 
feverish restlessness ? Whatever may be its source, the deficiency 
is prominent enough ; and, unless some antidote or compensation 
be found for it, will produce disastrous results, probably poisoning 
the American character and rendering it utterly feeble, capricious, 
and unreliable. The great defect may be specified as a want of 
conservatism, a strong predilection for the new and disregard, or 
even contempt, for the old, a lack of reverence manifesting itself 
most painfully in the customary disobedience exhibited by the 
young, in the frequent use of profane and foul language, and in a 
boastful exaltation of the present era, accompanied by an unmeas- 
ured extolling of everything American. Such a weakness of na- 
tional character is a very serious one, leading almost inevitably to 
inordinate vanity, the practice of throwing upon the market fabrics 
worthless by reason of undue haste in their manufacture, a negli- 
gent and unremunerative method of tillage, the multiplying of 
unsafe and unsubstantial dwellings and public buildings, super- 
ficialness in scholarship, and all the other results which naturally 
flow from over-estimation of one's own abilities, and over-eagerness 
to succeed. Whence can the much-needed conservatism be so easily 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 377 

and effectively infused into the American character as from the 
great source of respect, reverence, sobriety, patience, and humility, — 
that grand Institution which is ever looking back with profound 
self-abasement to the testimony of the ages and the revealed truth 
of God, which teaches men to distrust themselves and their own 
deductions, and bids them recognize in venerableness and stability 
criteria of truth and worth ? It may be distasteful to the Nine- 
teenth Ceirtury to hear that it has anything to learn from the 
First, it may not be gratifying to national pride to be told that 
customs, laws, methods which have barely withstood the assaults 
of one hundred years, are less trustworthy than such as have en- 
dured the convulsions of nearly two thousand; but unwelcome 
lessons are sometimes not unwholesome. What principle of per- 
manency can possibly exist in sects which are perhaps younger 
than youthful America, which ridicule all appeal to antiquity, 
which teach every man to do what seems good in his own eyes, 
which perpetually shift their anchorage, so as to deny at one time 
what they strenuously affirm at another, which are the creatures 
of yesterday and will die to-morrow. Let men mock at the pur- 
blind souls which are content to grope with the moles and bats in 
the subterranean darkness of hoar antiquity, let them smile at an- 
tiquated notions, obsolete customs, and mediasval superstitions, 
while the sanctity of marriage, the holiness of home, honesty in 
business transactions, incorruptibility in public station, temper- 
ance, soberness, and chastity are being swallowed up in a general 
whirl of extravagance, luxuriousness, and debauchery; let them 
throw over these fearful facts the cloak of periodical excitement, 
or strive to forget them amid persistent reiterations of mutual 
assurances that they do not exist; let them comfort themselves 
with doctrines invented for the express purpose of proving that 
crime is mental disease and not moral delinquency, and with the 
consoling delusions of a soft, self-indulgent, easy-going Christian- 
ity, which knows nothing of the Cross save as a jeweled orna- 
ment ; let them drive into hostility to religion those who have 
manliness enough to despise beliefs which cannot abide the test of 
reasoning nor satisfy the longings of a heroic heart to sacrifice 
itself for its Lord ; — and the divine judgment will, sooner or later, 
descend upon the land in overpowering wrath, short, sharp, and 
terrible. 

Already has sectional jealousy given rise to one tremendous 



378 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH 

contest. How many years of peace and prosperity will dawn upon 
the United States before the conflicting interests of different groups 
of states will again point brother's sword at the breast of brother ? 
Mutterings of a coming storm are occasionally heard. The finan- 
cial question is a fruitful source of controversy between East and 
West, and it is becoming yearly more important with the growth 
of the country. The population is multiplying, the vacant lands 
are rapidly being taken possession of and put under cultivation. 
New states are being formed, and old ones are increasing in power 
and resources. A day is approaching which will see the arable 
territory of our country occupied, and the vast ' empire teeming 
with restless millions, greedy for money, careless of risk, indiffer- 
ent to consequences, intelligent, enterprising, self-confident. What 
power will then be strong enough to bind together in one solar 
system these rushing worlds ? Can sectarianism do it ? — sectarian- 
ism that is the very principle of disunion, which is itself dividing 
and subdividing endlessly, as if to demonstrate the infinite divis- 
ibility of matter ? Or shall we not look more hopefully towards 
the Catholic Church, which has always shown itself the friend and 
ally of law and order, which, although bound to that body of 
death, the Roman Empire, nevertheless preserved its own unity 
long after the final disruption of that once huge and powerful 
realm ? Is there not some dependence to be placed upon a cor- 
porate society which professes to have organic union with the in- 
carnate Son of God, guarded by rules and regulations of His 
appointment which have preserved it, without serious impairment, 
through all the revolutions and catastrophes of eighteen hundred 
years ? Will not an organization which, spreading its ramifica- 
tions over the breadth and length of the land and extending them 
into every corner, instructs all its members that willful separation 
from the body corporate is not only detrimental, as destructive of 
the outward and visible unity which ought to characterize a Chris- 
tian brotherhood, but is the deadly sin of schism, entailing loss of 
all title to heavenly felicity, exert at least a slight influence in 
compacting the numerous states, north and south, east and west, 
great and small, into one mighty confederacy, as durable as it will 
be imposing ? 

But would it not be unkind, ungrateful, to give up that faith 
to which America owes so much of her freedom and independence 
for a creed which is identified with absolute power? Does our 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 379 

country, then, owe so much to Puritanism ? We very much doubt 
it. In its early days, Puritanism showed itself to the full as intol- 
erant, arbitrary, illiberal, and narrow as those from whose tyranny 
it professed to have suffered. Poetry may perhaps be excused for 
sweetly singing, concerning the first landing of the u Pilgrim Fa- 
thers " upon the " stern and rock-bound coast" of New England, 
that they " left unstained what there they found, freedom to worship 
God ; " but sober history .must be suffered to relate how bitterly 
they persecuted Anabaptists, Quakers, and all others whose con- 
sciences and judgments did not exactly coincide with their own. 
The Roman Catholics of Maryland established complete toleration 
for all who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ ; the Puritans of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut cut off ears, burned tongues, and 
otherwise maltreated Presbyterians, Baptists, Churchmen, and 
other ''heretics," scourging, banishing, and killing them. In 
the mother-country, sectarianism ran riot under Cromwell ; but 
it was the sturdy, quiet, and inflexible spirit of sound churchman- 
ship which had gradually forced from the crown acknowledgments 
of the Commons' rights and confirmations of their privileges, and 
which, eventually triumphing over the hostile spirit of misrule, 
firmly established the admirable system of limited and constitu- 
tional monarchy under which Englishmen now enjoy as much 
freedom, perhaps, as men can have without rushing into license. 
Let it, however, be said that American Puritanism soon lost the 
objectionable features which made it so unlovely in its earlier 
days, and rapidly succumbed to the influence of the new conti- 
nent, forgetting in a generation or two much of its narrowness and 
many of its prejudices, and suffering its adherents to broaden out 
into the distinguished patriots whom it gave to the councils and 
battle-fields of the Revolution. Let us grant Puritanism its proper 
meed of praise, and no more. 

To run a career of glorious achievement, the American Church 
is in a condition in which no church has been since the days of 
Constantine till she was born amid the throes of the Revolution. 
It is true that, from the accession of William and Mary, Scotland 
had had a church of her own, free from any debasing connection 
with the civil government ; but the Scottish Church was so unfort- 
unately circumstanced that the prospects of her ever prospering 
greatly seemed faint enough. The Church in America has had to 
contend against no great overshadowing establishment like the 



380 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

Presbyterian Kirk in Scotland, but has, in a measure at least, had 
a fair field on which to do battle for her life. She suffered not a 
little during the Revolutionary period by reason of the suspicion 
which attached to her as the daughter of the church established in 
the kingdom with which the colonists were at war, and was often 
charged with toryism, as she has been since with aversion to free 
institutions and to a republican form of government ; but she has 
escaped the deadliness of the enmity which has so often assailed 
the Mother-Church upon grounds purely political. Few, compara- 
tively, have dissented from her because they supposed her doctrines 
inherently opposed to their political sentiments ; and none, because 
they charged her with having joined hands with the government 
to oppress them. The American Church is free, and may well 
thank God for having delivered her from her Mother's thralldom. 
She may at times think it hard that she is left to fight her own 
battles with nothing but supernatural aid to support her ; yet she 
must herself feel that such thoughts belong only to the hour of 
weakness, and are unworthy of her high calling. It is a glorious 
thing to be free ! To know that none lower than God Himself is 
her master, or has the right to enact laws for her to obey, except, 
indeed, the great Catholic Church of which she herself is an inte- 
gral portion ; to have the exalted responsibility of waging warfare 
for her Eternal King with the forces of evil that are banded against 
her, and to be in a position to do this without fear or favor ; are 
things worth living for. Not to herself does she owe her freedom, 
any more than she does her original being. It may not be to the 
Church's credit that, having once been enslaved, she never rose to 
an appreciation of her birthright and demanded to be free again, 
and that the nearest approach she ever made, during the long lapse 
of centuries, to an assertion of her prerogatives, was that of imitat- 
ing the State, and trying, in her turn, to make a serf of it ; but the 
facts are precisely such. She is not free in the United States on 
account of any wise movements, or prudent precautions, or far- 
sighted policy of her own, but merely because divine Providence 
was pleased that it should be so. Thus God Himself has wrought 
another most important reformation in the Church which He died 
to redeem. Are we not justified in confidently believing that His 
favor has not yet deserted her, and that He intends her to fulfill a 
grand destiny! Why else has her polity been preserved intact 
through so many revolutions, and why has she been restored to 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 381 

the condition in which she won such splendid triumphs during the 
period before Con stan tine the Great ? God, we see, has not for- 
gotten His promises, and will not cease to be gracious unto 
her. 

But, before the embracing serpent unwound itself from the 
body of its intended victim, it tightened its coils with the expiring 
rage of desperation till the blood stagnated in the compressed 
veins and the very bones cracked beneath the strain. For a cen- 
tury and a half the English Establishment held the infant Church 
of America in her remorseless grasp. Where would the Church 
of England have been, had Britain herself been treated as she 
treated the Colonies? The successful missionary leader was 
almost immediately consecrated to the episcopate, and so endowed 
with all necessary power and authority to plant an apostolic 
church that should lack no element of growth and stability ; but 
the successor of Augustine dared not, and in one sense could not, 
ordain a single bishop for the vast territory of North America, 
separated by three thousand miles of ocean from the parent coun- 
try, and evidently destined soon to swarm with countless myriads 
of intelligent, industrious, and thriving inhabitants. Reasons of 
state interfered with the free action of God's ministers, and for- 
bade their sending a chief-shepherd to watch, as he only could, 
over the welfare and safety of Christ's flock. Technical difficul- 
ties, due entirely to the existence of an ungodly relationship which 
virtually constituted an enslavement of the church, prevented the 
English bench from listening to the earnest supplications of the de- 
tached and languishing congregations of American "Episcopalians" 
that they might have a bishop to oversee their affairs. Lord 
Clarendon, in his zeal for the pure faith, might strongly favor the 
project of consecrating a missionary bishop, and prelates like 
Berkeley, Gibson, Butler, and Sherlock might strenuously advo- 
cate the measure, but all to no purpose while there existed a 
ministry composed, as for example the celebrated Cabal cabinet 
was, of Infidels, Papists, and a Presbyterian. The State itself 
reaped as it deserved to reap. The hearts of thousands of settlers, 
who were naturally drawn by religion, as well as by birth and 
inherited affection, to the father-land, who under a different treat- 
ment would have remained staunch loyalists, were alienated by 
this course of reckless indifference, and driven into fraternizing 
with those whose education and traditions rendered them violently 



382 THE CHUBCH AND THE FAITH 

hostile to crosier and sceptre alike. As for the Church, she seems 
to breathe with a difficulty suggestive of speedy dissolution. The 
apostolic rite of Confirmation, whereby the Holy Ghost is be- 
stowed upon those whom the regeneration of baptism has fitted 
for the reception of such a gift, not administered for one hundred 
and fifty years ; the grace of Holy Orders withheld for that length 
of time from all who were not in a position to undertake a long 
and expensive voyage ; no supervision, except that of an occasional 
commissary sent out to act for the bishop of London, exercised 
during that full period over the scattered congregations, which 
were often destitute, too, for many years of pastoral care and con- 
trol ; — what condition was this for a religious corporation to live, 
and thrive, and grow in, which requires by its essential consti- 
tution some sort at least of episcopal government ? It seemed as 
though the experiment were being made how much the Church 
could bear without extinction ; as though a heartless state-policy 
were putting her to tests not less painful and crucial than those 
which science applies, in vivisection, to the quivering frames of 
dumb brutes. That she did not succumb to the torture and die, 
is little short of a miracle ; but her Lord did not intend that the 
New World, the chosen battle-ground of innumerable sects, should 
be left without some organization capable of bearing witness 
to the true Catholic faith and gathering souls into the one 
safe fold. 

When "William of Orange drove the Stuarts from their throne, 
eight English Bishops, with Sancroft of Canterbury at their head, 
together with their brethren of the Scottish bench, conceiving 
themselves bound in conscience by the oaths which they had 
taken to support the deposed family, refused to transfer their alle- 
giance to the new monarch, and consequently incurred the royal 
displeasure. From that date onwards the Church in Scotland, 
under the superintendence of the non-juring bishops, existed in- 
dependent of the secular government and bravely contending 
against immense odds. Unfettered by state ties, the Scotch Epis- 
copate, to which an appeal had previously been made in America's 
behalf by the liberal-minded Berkeley, was able to listen to Dr. 
Seabury's petition, when, having met with little encouragement 
in his efforts to secure consecration at the hands of the English 
prelates, he turned towards it with better hope. In the year 1784, 
on the 14th day of November, by the official act of three bishops 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 383 

whose names should be known to every American Churchman, — 
Kilgour, Skinner, and Petrie, Bishop, 'and Coadjutor, of Aberdeen, 
and Bishop of Ross and Moray, respectively, the first named being 
also Primus of Scotland, — Samuel Seabury became invested with 
full apostolic authority and entitled to exercise it within the dio- 
cese of Connecticut. The majority of American Churchmen were 
unfortunately disposed to look coldly upon one whose orders had 
been conferred by Non-jurors. In 1787, after much delay caused 
by the legal difficulties which stood in the way of consecrating 
men who, being citizens of a free Republic, could not take the 
oath of allegiance to the British government, and also by a not- 
inexcusable fear that the youthful church would commit some 
great indiscretion and thereby forfeit its catholic character, or at 
least involve the Mother-Church in her perils, misfortunes, and 
just reproaches, Drs. White and Provoost received the full apos- 
tolic commission from the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, 
and the Bishops of Bath and Wells, and Peterborough, at the 
Archiepiscopal Chapel of Lambeth, on the 4th of February. 
Pennsylvania and New York being thus provided with bishops, 
there yet lacked one to make up the number necessary to a regu- 
lar consecration, unless Bishop Seabury should be called in to 
assist. At length this knot was cut by the consecration of Dr. 
Madison for the diocese of Virginia, in 1790, which was the one 
hundred and eighty-third year since Robert Hunt had first un- 
furled the banner of the English Church on the northern bank of 
the James River. In 1792 the four bishops laid their united hands 
upon the head of Dr. Claggett, bishop-elect of Maryland, whose 
is the distinction of having been the first to be consecrated on 
American soil. 

Thus the struggling and newly-emancipated church obtained 
a valid Episcopate. As she adopted the faith of the Mother- 
Church with only a very few and unimportant changes, and, in 
1789, a Book of Common Prayer which was substantially identical 
with that which she had used before the Colonies had achieved 
their independence (the only really important alterations being the 
omission of the Athanasian Creed and of the Commination Service 
and the incorporation into the Communion Office of certain feat- 
ures suggested by the Scotch Liturgy), it cannot be denied that, if 
the Church of England is a living and comparatively pure branch 
of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, the American 



384: THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

offshoot is so likewise. Certainly, intercommunion between 
mother and daughter has not been broken off during the century 
that has elapsed since the Declaration of Independence gave 
warning that a distinct organization for the latter might soon be- 
come indispensable. 

A society or a corporation cannot exist long in an abnormal 
condition without experiencing injurious effects. Shall we sup- 
pose, then, that the Church of God, being constituted, as we are 
convinced that by divine charter it is, with bishops as its only 
proper chief rulers, could continue for such a length of time on an 
enforced congregational basis without suffering great loss of vital 
tone ? Congregational societies, it is true, flourished well enough 
on a foundation, ostensible and real, of that description, but they 
do not teach the doctrine that we hold forth before the people, 
instructing them in the necessity of sacramental grace, ministerial 
authority, and the witness of a continuous organization. A church 
without a bishop is a body without a head ; and a church with its 
episcopal ruler removed from it by the width of the Atlantic, is a 
body corporate doomed to a very feeble condition. The great 
wonder is that, infected by the religious atmosphere around them, 
and stung by the unnatural conduct of a mother who could not 
act as she would towards her offspring, which, doubtless, she loved 
far mere tenderly than she dared to show, the whole mass of 
Church-people did not rise in revolt and join the ranks of Dissent ; 
and that they did not do so, but compelled themselves to bear 
patiently as much neglect and ill-usage as could well be put upon 
them, is a very strong testimony to the correctness of the principles 
to which they clung so tenaciously. Nevertheless, large numbers 
were estranged, in whole or in part, from the communion of their 
forefathers, while others sat weeping over the ruin that seemed 
coming upon their Zion. It is lamentable enough to reflect that 
whole congregations were thus irretrievably lost to the True Church, 
whose livery they stripped off from themselves, and whose colors 
they traitorously and cravenly trampled in the dust ; but it is far 
sadder to contemplate the frightful degeneracy which pervaded 
the whole American communion, in consequence of the false posi- 
tion into which she had been forced. What must be the result 
upon the minds of thinking people of inculcating upon them, in 
every way, the great necessity of baptism, and then leaving them 
to move heaven and earth with supplication, and crying, and bitter 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 385 

mourning for a priest to administer that sacrament ; of holding 
np the advantages of the apostolic rite of confirmation, and keep- 
ing thousands of people without the possibility of obtaining those 
benefits which you have persuaded them are so great ; of remain- 
ing aloof from large societies of Christians because they have no 
valid ministry, and then refusing to supply your own starving 
people with those who alone, you tell them, can bring down for 
them the bread from Heaven? Such glaring, ay! monstrous, 
contradictions between theory and practice did strike with stun- 
ning force upon all minds, impelling them towards courses of 
action, which were more or less fatal, according to their various 
bents and the nature of the training they had received. How 
could any but the most robust souls retain a warm attachment 
to their church, or a firm belief in its claims ? How was it pos- 
sible that the rulers of God's kingdom on earth could be fully- 
convinced that it was in any exclusive sense His peculiar do- 
minion, and yet take so little pains to extend its boundaries, 
or even to preserve territory already conquered ? Would not the 
Virginia or Connecticut Churchman be constantly asking him- 
self, Do these English prelates, who turn so deaf an ear to our 
pleadings, really believe that an apostolic ministry and a con- 
tinuity of organization are of any vital importance, that the 
vaunted privileges of the true Church are any privileges at all, 
or that there is any difference worth troubling one's self about 
between Churchmanship and Dissent ? 

The result was that the tone of the Church sank to the level of 
sectarianism, and lower yet if that be possible. Nothing, after the 
establishment of American independence, preserved the remnant 
of the faithful from drifting into the sects, and becoming absorbed 
in their ranks, but the lingering traditions of the fading past. 
Sentiment, rather than principle, seems to have actuated an over- 
whelming majority of those who retained their faith. Even the 
leaders clung to the ark of God, not because it was the Ark of the 
Covenant, in which alone safety could be found, but because they 
admired its shape and proportions, understood its management, 
and felt at home beneath its roof. They gathered around its 
standard, not because they felt that they were drawing their swords 
in defense of the Bride of the Lamb, but because they claimed the 
right, as free Americans, to worship in any way they saw fit. 
Whoever studies carefully the Memoirs of Bishop White can 



386 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

hardly avoid the conclusion that even that meek-spirited, devout, 
and influential prelate had no superabundant knowledge of what 
genuine catholicity is, and still smaller sympathy with it. Indeed, 
no more humiliating exercise can be undertaken by a true son of 
the American Church than that of reading the records of the 
early Conventions, with the comments made upon them by him 
who, in many respects, was their foremost member. With the ex- 
ception of Bishop Seabury, who, like Ridley, was independent 
and original enough to think for himself, and a few others, hardly 
a man seems to have had the slightest idea that it was a matter of 
any great consequence, except to the handful who happened to 
possess a strong preference for her, whether the Catholic Church 
in the United States floated or sank. "What a condition for 
her to be in! Made exclusive by the instincts of even the 
shadowy Churchmanship they possessed, and yet having thrown 
away the only decent pretext they could have for withhold- 
ing access to their pulpits and altars from multitudes who 
were trying as earnestly as themselves to fill souls with the 
love of Christ, the ministry brought down upon its unhelmeted 
head the contemptuous reproach of the excluded preachers and 
their followers, and did not escape by much more than the 
breadth of a very fine hair from making itself the laughing- 
stock of mankind. 

With such a beginning, what was to be the history of the 
American Catholic Church ? It was certain that many years 
must pass over her head, and many sore trials be encountered, 
before she would emerge from the shadow of the eclipse. The 
most sanguine could hardly have designated less than a century 
as the period of castigation, during which she would struggle up- 
wards into something like soundness in faith, as that should be 
held by the mass of her members ; while he whose mental com- 
position had admitted one grain of despondency would predict for 
her a career of increasing apostacy, till at length her justly-incensed 
Lord should pluck her candlestick from its place. The sombre 
vaticinations of the latter class had, by far, the most probability 
upon their side, and would, perhaps, have been fulfilled but for one 
circumstance which was overlooked. The Americans spoke that 
grand old tongue, in which were enshrined some of the noblest 
theological productions that have ever been given to the world, 
and so could not avoid sometimes stumbling upon a treatise which 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 387 

would put before them, with extraordinary clearness, and almost 
irresistible cogency of reasoning, orthodox views to which they 
had long been strangers. Had they been obliged to draw their 
divinity entirely from their own doctors, or depend upon the 
meagre and turbid rills afforded by translators, there could hardly 
have arisen a John Henry Hobart, to wear upon his noble brows 
the mitre of the Empire State, and become the champion of 
American Catholicity, and it is little less than certain that the 
" Protestant Episcopal " Church would long since have ceased to 
have so much as a name on the earth. 

She still lives and breathes, and can look back over a hundred 
years of substantial progress, but what position does she occupy 
in the land 1 The tear trickles down the watchman's furrowed 
cheek as he prepares himself to answer the question. She has at 
least the nominal adherence, and we hope something far beyond 
that, of a fair proportion of the ablest and best educated men the 
country can boast, especially perhaps among those whose training 
in the legal system which we have inherited from our Anglo- 
Saxon progenitors has peculiarly fitted them for appreciating a 
theology of precedents ; and in the large cities can point to a proud 
array of graceful spires and solid towers ; and that is nearly all 
that can be pleaded in her behalf. Further than this, we have 
only to say that her exclusiveness has exposed her to a hatred 
which is intensified by contempt for the timidity with which it is 
maintained. She is considered on all sides a fair mark for the 
shafts of ridicule. The abhorred epithet of Catholic is hurled at 
her by millions, who can only escape the charge of preferring a 
slanderous accusation by taking refuge behind a gross and cul- 
pable ignorance. Her utmost efforts certainly fail to keep her 
much more than abreast of the increase of population, the ranks 
of her ministry being filled up with extreme difficulty, and then 
only partially, and her coffers being chronically empty. In fine, 
her general condition is such that those who have her welfare at 
heart periodically wail over the sad state into which she has fallen, 
and cry aloud to her God to lift her out of it. 

Having persevered so long in striving to reduce herself to the 
status of a sect, without propitiating in the least degree the numer- 
ous denominations among whom she would gladly hide her insig- 
nificance, is it not almost time that she should try a change of 
policy ? She may move about with deprecatory air for the next 



388 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

thousand years, if the world last so long, and not make the slight- 
est advance towards a good understanding with those charitable 
persons who are so ready to fling in her face the term Catholic. 
When she has compelled the Romanists to retract the sweeping 
condemnation which they pronounced upon her as a mere Protest- 
ant sect, at about the same date she will prevail upon the denom- 
inations not to class her with the Papists. Why would it not be 
well for her to see, in the meantime, whether her opponents do not 
take a more correct view of her true position than she does herself? 
Is she not as radically distinct from the sects, by reason of not 
having lost the continuity of her corporate existence, as she is 
from the Poinan Catholics, by having discarded the errors and 
corruptions in which they remain entangled ? Either she is this, 
or she is nothing, if not worse than nothing. She has long been at- 
tempting to persuade men that is she something else, and has only 
succeeded in getting herself injured, insulted, assailed on every 
side. What if she should now unfurl her banner and raise the 
trumpet to her lips, warning men that they must stand aside from 
her path or abide the consequences, for she has an errand from 
God to His perishing creatures ! Suppose that the tongue, which 
has hitherto stammered and muttered, should proclaim its message 
with the clarion tones proper to a herald of salvation ! Could the 
adversaries hate her more bitterly, or attack her more fiercely, than 
they do now? Would she not put new heart into all her true chil- 
dren, and give to each arm among her chosen warriors the strength 
of fifty? 

If Pearson, Bull, and Waterland are to be the theologians at 
whose feet the aroused Church of America will sit, let Southey be 
the poet who shall refresh her in the hour of repose. Let her 
learn from him who burned beneath Kehama's cruel curse how 
to resign herself to the terrible trials which beset her ; let her en- 
courage herself by Thalaba's example to throw away every de- 
pendence but that upon the Lord God of Hosts, who is sworn 
to succor those who have unwavering faith in His mercy and 
power ; and let her, with Poderick, the glorious Goth, repent in 
dust and ashes of the sins which have involved her past in guilt 
and shame ; and then, perhaps, will her banners float some mem- 
orable day over a field as triumphant as that which witnessed 
the prodigies of valor enacted by the bare-headed king upon 
Moor and renegade, when he rode, rejoicing in his strength, 



THE AMERICAN CHURCH. 

through the serried ranks of the miscreants. If she is not the 
Church of God, let her speedily perish upon the gibbet of 
public scorn; but, if she is the duly-accredited representative, 
in these United States, of the grand old Church of the Ages, 
she has only to be true to herself, and she will soon fly upon 
the wings of the Great Eagle to certain victory* May God 
hasten the consummation ! 



NOTE TO PAGE 286. 

The Creed recited at the Council of Ephesus, and confirmed by the as- 
sembled fathers, seems enveloped in no little uncertainty. Although the Council 
of Constantinople issued a Creed which was different in some respects from that 
which had been set forth by the earlier gathering, the latter did not at all dis- 
appear from sight, nor did it cease to be used. What the Council of Ephesus 
ratified was called by it the Nicene Creed, and the question thereupon arises, 
Did it mean the form as actually set forth at Niceea or what we may call the 
Niceno-Constantinopolitan formula, which is substantially the same as our pres- 
ent Nicene Creed. On this point authorities differ widely. Dr. Waterland 
affirms that, when the Ephesine divines solemnly ratified the Nicene Creed, and 
forbade any alteration of it or departure from it, they meant precisely what 
they said, the very confession of faith given the Church by the three hundred 
and eighteen bishops, in 325 a. d. ; while Bishop Browne, in his well-known work 
on the Articles, and the author of the Annotated Book of Common Prayer, 
are quite as positive in their assertions that Cyril and his friends actually gave 
their sanction to the improved version, if we may so designate the altered for- 
mulary which we owe to the one hundred and fifty fathers who sat under the 
presidency of Gregory Nazianzen. 

While it must be admitted that the matter is not of very grave importance, 
it may merit a little attention. The two Creeds do not at all conflict with each 
other, but are entirely in harmony, the main points of variance being that the 
earlier ends with damnatory clauses which were omitted from the other, and 
that this latter is more copious in its expressions concerning the Holy Ghost. 
Neither, probably, was very new, the original Nicene formula differing little, we 
have good reason to suppose, from one or more creeds which were recited by 
individual members of that venerable assemblage when called upon for a dec- 
laration of their belief ; and the Constantinopolitan being virtually the same 
thing, retouched by the skillful hand of Gregory Nazianzen, — according, at 
least, to a wide-spread opinion of antiquity, — he, however, borrowing the altera- 
tions from another ancient formulary ante-dating Nica?a, of which Epiphanius 
gives us information. After Constantinople, the two Creeds moved along, side 
by side, in sisterly amity, for at least three hundred years, as we know from the 
most reliable testimony, the records of the Fourth and Sixth General Councils, 
at both of which the two Creeds were separately sanctioned. The Acts of these 
Councils mention first the definition of faith set forth by the three hundred and 
eighteen Holy Fathers of the Church at Nicsea, reaffirming it ; and then men- 
tion separately the definition of faith set forth by the one hundred and fifty 
Holy Fathers of the Church at Constantinople, similarly sanctioning it. 



NOTE TO PAGE 286. 391 

Nevertheless, it would be rather satisfactory to find that the General Council 
which immediately followed Constantinople distinctly recognized the validity of 
its action upon the important topic of a Creed for the whole Church. We will, 
first, try to ascertain the fact, and then we may enlarge briefly upon that fact. 
The learned Hammond, in his very valuable "Definitions of Faith and Canons 
of the Universal Church," thus translates a portion of the Seventh Canon of the 
Ephesine Council : " These things having been read, the holy Synod has deter- 
mined that no person shall be allowed to bring forward, or to write, or to com- 
pose any other Creed besides that which was settled by the holy Fathers who 
were assembled in the city of Nicasa, with the Holy Ghost." This language 
seems sufficiently explicit to convince any one that the particular Creed adopted 
by the Third General Council was the Nicene, properly so called, and not the 
Constantinopolitan. An examination of Beveridge's Synodicon, in which will 
be seen all the Canons of this Synod, in Latin, will show that Hammond gives a 
correct version of the important Seventh Canon, unless Beveridge is wrong too. 
If this is not enough, the investigator may turn to the Arabic Paraphrase which 
Beveridge annexes ; and, if he hesitates to undertake unpointed Arabic, in bad 
type, a glance at the Latin intercolumnar translation will probably satisfy him 
that it lends no aid nor comfort to those who insist that Nicene means Constan- 
tinopolitan. And now, when we have turned to Labbe's prodigious work on the 
Councils, the end is reached. Behold, spread before us on huge folio pages, the 
proceedings, and the canons, and the letters, and all that is extant done by or at 
that council, or in relation to it. In Greek and Latin, Labbe gives the same 
account that Beveridge and Hammond do. There is no allusion to the Constan- 
tinopolitan assemblage and its definition of faith, but we are told of the Creed 
given forth " by the holy Fathers who were assembled in the city of NicaBa." 
Let us listen to a comment which Labbe quotes from Binius : " After these 
things the decree of the catholic faith was confirmed. For, the Nicene Symbol 
having been repeated, it was enjoined, under anathema, that no one should 
attempt in any way to add to the faith, beyond what had been defined by the 
Nicene Council." If the indulgent reader will pardon this rude translation, he 
will judge that Binius and Labbe clearly distinguish Nicene from Niceno- Constan- 
tinopolitan. It will be well, also, that we should notice a long Epistle of Cyril to 
Anastasius and others, given by Labbe, explaining the Nicene Creed ; for in it 
he not only employs the title, but sets down the formula itself at length, — and 
the words are those of the original Council. 

"We must, therefore, conclude that, unless other evidence can be adduced, 
we have no good reason to doubt that the Third General Council sanctioned the 
Creed of the First, and not that of the Second. Moreover, whence such evidence 
is to be derived is hard to conjecture ; and on what grounds Harold Browne and 
Blunt base their opinions is also very obscure. Waterland's judgment seldom 
misled him, nor does this seem to be an exceptional instance. 

It will, however, be appropriate to reflect that, even at the summer solstice, 
a day has no more than its twenty-four hours, and that when a council attempts 
to crowd everything into so brief a space of time, omissions are sure to occur. 
These dignified prelates, being in such unseemly haste to transact all their busi- 
ness before the arrival of the Antiochene party, doubtless contented themselves 
with one Creed, which happened to seem to them the best for their purposes, 
and disregarded the other without intending to deny or disparage it at all. 
Fairness also reminds us that, twenty years later, not long enough for men to 



392 THE CHURCH AND THE FAITH. 

have forgotten what occurred at this synod, another General Council, that of 
Chalcedon, confirmed the three that had gone before, and adopted distinctly 
both Creeds. How Chalcedon could have given its approval to both Constanti- 
nople and Ephesus, if Bphesus had intended to repudiate Constantinople, we do 
not see, especially when we remember that Theodoret attended both assemblies, 
a man who was quick to discover, and not slow to point out, such contradictions. 
The Second of Constantinople next lends, in its turn, its solemn sanction to the 
four that had gone before it, and lastly, the Third of Constantinople, which was 
the Sixth General Council, sanctions and approves the whole five. 

Therefore, although there is no evidence, apparently, that the Council of 
Ephesus even knew that the Constantinopolitan Creed existed, it may neverthe- 
less have even recited that formula, as some suppose, and stamped it with its 
deliberate approval ; and if it did not do so, but ignored it entirely, this was 
probably due to great haste, for if the action had been intentional, the Council 
of Chalcedon, knowing this, would have shrunk from stultifying itself by 
approving the two councils. 

As regards the further history of the Creeds, when the decay of Arianism 
had removed the occasion for reciting the damnatory clauses of the earlier 
Definition, they were no longer clung to with the old tenacity, and then, the 
Creed to which they belonged having lost its claim upon a separate existence, 
the final merging took place, and the Niceno-Constantinopolitan formulary 
reigned undisputed. 



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